Syria’s Assad travels to Russia, meets with Putin

MOSCOW (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad was asked to come to Russia to get him to agree to potential peace initiatives drafted by Russia, Iran and Turkey as Russia prepares to scale down its military presence in the country’s civil war, the Kremlin said Tuesday.

Vladimir Putin hosted his Syrian counterpart in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday, ahead of a summit between Russia, Turkey and Iran and a new round of Syria peace talks in Geneva. The meeting was unannounced and the Kremlin did not make it public until Tuesday morning.

“I passed to (Putin) and all Russian people our greetings and gratitude for all of the efforts that Russia made to save our country,” Assad told Russia’s top brass.

Assad has only ventured outside his war-ravaged nation twice since the conflict began — both times to Russia. This week’s visit to meet Putin is his second since the crisis began in March 2011 leading to a civil war that has killed some 400,000 and resulted in millions of refugees.

The first was in October 2015, shortly after Russia launched its military campaign in Syria to shore up Assad’s forces, which turned the war in favor of Assad.

The meeting in Sochi, which lasted three hours, came ahead of a summit at the same place between the presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey. Iran and Russia have been Assad’s main backers while Turkey supports the opposition.

Putin had spoken with the leaders of Iran and Turkey to “assure them that Russia will work with Syrian leadership to prepare the groundwork for possible understandings” that could be reached on Wednesday to “make sure” that agreements reached will be “viable,” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday.

The Kremlin said Putin would phone President Donald Trump and Saudi King Salman to discuss the situation in Syria on Wednesday.