DAMASCUS, Syria: Syria’s foreign minister told his Ukrainian counterpart on Monday that Damascus seeks strategic partnerships with Kyiv.
“There will be strategic partnerships between us and Ukraine on the political, economic, and social levels, and scientific partnerships,” Syria’s newly appointed foreign minister, Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani, told Ukraine’s Andrii Sybiha.
Al-Sharaa, leader of the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group, spearheaded an 11-day offensive earlier this month leading to the ouster of Bashar al-Assad.
Though Russia was a staunch ally of Bashar al-Assad and has given him political asylum, Al-Sharaa said he did not want Russia to leave Syria in a manner unbefitting its ties with the country.
Moscow has said it is in contact with the new administration in Syria over the fate of Russian military facilities in the Arab state.
“Certainly, the Syrian people and the Ukrainian people have the same experience and the same suffering that we endured over 14 years,” Syrian foreign minister Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani said during the meeting.
He said Ukraine would send more food aid shipments to Syria after the expected arrival of 20 shipments of flour on Tuesday.
Ukraine foreign minister Andrii Sybiha also held a meeting with Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa during which he urged the new Syrian leader to expel Russia from the country.
“The Russian and Assad regimes supported each other because they were based on violence and torture,” Sybiga said, according to a statement.
“We believe that from a strategic point of view, the removal of Russia’s presence in Syria will contribute to the stability of not only the Syrian state but the entire Middle East and Africa.”
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Earlier, Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Heorhii Tykhyis said that Ukraine had already established contact with the new Syrian authorities and was ready to restore diplomatic ties if the new government reversed its recognition of Bashar al-Assad’s regime’s violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced last Friday the dispatch of Ukraine’s first batch of food aid to Syria comprising 500 metric tons of wheat flour as part of Kyiv’s humanitarian initiative in coordination with the United Nations World Food Programme.
Ukraine, exports wheat and corn to countries in the Middle East, but not to Syria, which in the Assad era imported food from Russia. Kyiv is a global producer and exporter of grain and oilseeds.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said the status of Russia’s military bases in Syria would be the subject of negotiations with the new leadership in Damascus.
