News - World: Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad have met in Moscow to discuss bilateral ties and regional issues, in their first meeting at the Kremlin in over a year.

Putin hosted Assad in the Russian capital on Thursday and held talks on matters of mutual interest, Syria's official news agency SANA and Russia’s TASS news agency reported.

Assad said both Syria and Russia have encountered tough challenges but have consistently managed to overcome them, emphasizing the strong trust between Moscow and Damascus, SANA said.

Putin, for his part, characterized the situation in the Middle East as growing more tense and stressed the need for the continuation of bilateral talks, SANA further reported, adding that he also stated that there are promising prospects for economic and trade relations between Syria and Russia.

“Dear mister president, I am very happy to see you. We have the opportunity to talk about the entire set of our relations. We have not seen each other for a while,” TASS quoted Putin as telling Assad at the beginning of their meeting.

No more details about the meeting have been released yet.

Previously, the two leaders met at the Kremlin in mid-March last year, with their talks lasting three hours.

Russia is a key supporter of Syria and deployed forces to the war-ravaged Arab country on the official request of Assad to help fight foreign-backed Takfiri terrorist groups, including Daesh, since 2015. 

Together with Iran and Turkey, Russia has also served as one of the guarantors of negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition.

Source: Press TV