Putin and al-Sharaa hold talks at Kremlin

Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, held talks at the Kremlin on October 15.

Welcoming al-Sharaa, Putin hailed decades of “special relations” between the two countries, in which he claimed Moscow was always guided by Syrian people’s interests, and said his government wanted to expand them.

In his opening remarks at the talks, the Russian leader also remarked on the "special relationship" between the two countries and that the bilateral ties have always been "exclusively friendly."

The Kremlin noted that al-Sharaa had said that Syria will try to "relaunch the full range of our relations" and that the most important thing now is stability in the country and in the region as a whole. 

“We are trying to restore and redefine in a new way the nature of these relations so there is independence for Syria, sovereign Syria, and also its territorial unity and integrity and its security stability,” al-Sharaa said.