Syria and Iran agreed on Saturday to renew an economic strategic arrangement between the two countries as Damascus prepares to welcome Iran’s president in the near future, The Associated Press reported.
Syria and Iran signed almost a dozen economic deals in 2019 as part of the long-term strategic economic agreement to bolster their commercial ties.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Adollahian, who met in Damascus with Assad and his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad, did not set a date on where or when the signing of the extension will take place.
“Tehran and Damascus will continue to cooperate in all matters, especially with energy,” the Iranian Foreign Minister said at a news conference following the meetings.
Mekdad echoed similar sentiments, adding that developments in the “coming days” will further bolster them.
“We explored ways to expand economic and commercial ties and enhance cooperation to confront the illegal Western coercive economic measures imposed on both countries,” Mekdad said, according to AP.
While Iranian leaders deny that the Islamic Republic has a military presence in Syria, Iran is a key supporter of the Assad regime in Syria, having providing the regime with both financial aid and military advisers against a range of opposing forces since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
Near the start of the Syrian civil war, it was reported that then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had personally sanctioned the dispatch of officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to fight alongside Assad’s troops.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a top aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made clear several years ago that Iran would withdraw its “military advisers” from Syria and Iraq only if their governments wanted it to.
Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, in 2019 boasted that his country had “accomplished more than 90 percent” of its goals in Syria.