Damascus, May 11: President Dmitry Medvedev highlighted Moscow’s Cold War ties with Damascus Tuesday as he held a second day of talks with his Syrian counterpart on the first ever visit by a Russian head of state.
“Relations between our people go back many, many years and decades. They have always been friendly and partnerlike,” the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Medvedev as saying as he went into the talks with President Bashar al-Assad.
“We have many good and glorious pages,” he said, referring to Soviet-era assistance to Syria. “We believe that these ties are our common capital.”
Assad in turn appealed for Russian assistance in developing its oil and gas infrastructure as Syria seeks to restore its role as an important transit route between the Gulf and the Mediterranean.
He expressed hope that Russia would support Syria in efforts for a just and comprehensive Middle East peace.
“It is a vitally important issue” for Damascus, he said in allusion to Israel’s continued occupation of the Golan Heights which it seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in 1981 in a move never recognised by the international community.
Medvedev said he would discuss a Middle East settlement with the Syrian leader. “We have always called for it and it will be so in the future,” ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying.
The Russian leader arrived on his landmark visit late on Monday and went straight into a first meeting with Assad, Syrian state television reported.
Speaking alongside his host, Medvedev said he hoped “to develop the political dialogue and economic and cultural cooperation” between the two nations.
He voiced confidence “in the capacity of the two countries to resolve international and regional problems.”
Earlier in an interview with a Syrian daily, Medvedev called Damascus “one of the most important political centres of the Middle East” and urged the two countries to develop economic ties, particularly in the hi-tech sector.
Russia seeks to promote itself as a major power in the Middle East and wants to revive ties with old allies with whom relations weakened after the 1991 disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Assad for his part urged Moscow to help in efforts to denuclearise the Middle East and hailed the “great efforts undertaken by Russia for the peace process,” the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported.
Urging Russia to “contribute to help make the Middle East a denuclearised zone,” Assad also underscored the need for “a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear programme,” held in suspicion by the West.
Western governments have long accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons under the guise of its civilian nuclear energy programme, a charge Tehran denies.
Assad rejected any “military adventure (in Iran over its nuclear programme) as it will have catastrophic consequences in the region and the whole world.”
Medvedev’s visit comes shortly after Washington renewed US sanctions on Syria for a year, accusing it of supporting “terrorist” groups.
Syrian media have welcomed the visit, with government newspaper Tishrin on Monday hailing Russia’s “growing role” in the Middle East, especially in the context of Washington’s “failure to protect stability and world peace, because of its flagrant bias” towards Israel.
Along with the European Union, United Nations and United States, Russia is a member of the international quartet seeking peace in the Middle East and has long lobbied to host a Middle East peace conference.
Analysts say Moscow’s influence in the Middle East will largely depend on ties with Syria — a staunch ally of Iran and the Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, and where the Palestinian group Hamas has its political headquarters.
“Russia will seek to reduce pressure around Syria,” said Alexander Shumilin, head of the Middle East Conflicts Analysis Center at Russia’s US and Canada Institute.
Syria, one of the few countries to back Russia in its war with Georgia in 2008, is a major purchaser of its arms and Medvedev’s top foreign policy aide, Sergei Prikhodko, said military cooperation was firmly on the visit’s agenda.
—Agencies