Syrian regime president, Bashar al-Assad, met today, Thursday, May 30, with the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ali Khamenei, during a visit to Iran, more than a week after the death of the Iranian president and other officials.

The Iranian Tasnim News Agency quoted Khamenei as saying that Syria’s special position in the region is distinguished due to its identity, explaining that the unique Syrian identity is resistance, which was formed during the era of Hafez al-Assad, and this identity contributed to achieving Syrian national unity.

Khamenei said that the Westerners and their allies in the region planned to overthrow the political system of this country and remove Syria from the regional equation with the war they waged on Syria, but they did not succeed, and now they plan to use other methods.

Khamenei continued, “Everyone should see the special privilege enjoyed by the Syrian government, which is resistance, in front of their eyes, and with reference to the political and economic pressures exerted by America and Europe on Iran and Syria, these conditions must be overcome by increasing and organizing cooperation.”

For his part, Bashar al-Assad said, addressing Khamenei, that “Syrian-Iranian relations are strategic, and they are progressing under your guidance, and Mr. Raisi and Mr. Amir Abdollahian were at the forefront of implementing these directives.”

Al-Assad also referred to the issue of resistance in the region, explaining that after more than 50 years, the resistance line in the region has advanced and has become a religious and political approach, according to him.

“I have announced years ago that the cost of resistance is less than the cost of settlement, and this issue is now very clear to the Syrian people, and the recent cases in Gaza and the victories of the resistance have proven this issue to the Syrian people,” added al-Assad.

The meeting took place this morning, in the presence of the interim Iranian president, Mohammad Mokhber, according to what the Iranian ISNA news agency reported.

On May 23, al-Assad said that he would visit Tehran as soon as possible to offer condolences for the death of Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister during a phone call with the interim Iranian president.

Third visit since 2011

After the beginning of the revolution in Syria, al-Assad visited Iran on May 8, 2022, when he met with former president Ebrahim Raisi and Khamenei.

This visit was preceded by another one in October 2019, during which al-Assad met with Khamenei, the then commander of the Quds Force in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qassem Soleimani, and then Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani.

On May 20, Iran announced the death of the president of the republic, the foreign minister, and six of their companions after their helicopter crashed in East Azerbaijan province.

On May 22, Arab and foreign political leaders and officials participated in the funeral of Raisi, which lasted for days and spanned several provinces before he was buried in the city of Mashhad, in Khorasan province.

Al-Assad was absent from the funeral, attended instead by the regime’s prime minister, Hussein Arnous, the national security affairs advisor in the General Secretariat of the Presidency, Ali Mamlouk, and the minister of economy, Mohammad Samer al-Khalil.