2023-09-21 07:39:04
BEIJING (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad arrived in China on Thursday on his first visit to the country since the beginning of the 12-year war in Syria, in which Beijing was one of its main supporters.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Assad would attend the opening ceremony of the Asian Games, an international sports tournament that begins Saturday in the eastern city of Hangzhou.
Assad landed in Hangzhou on Thursday, according to state television CCTV.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was scheduled to arrive there on Friday and hold a banquet and other bilateral activities with Assad and other heads of state and government attending the games, including Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni; Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmed Al Jaber, crown prince of Kuwait, and Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
China has expanded its presence in the Middle East following brokering an agreement in March between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and has maintained its support for Assad in the Syrian conflict, in which half a million people have died and much of the country has been left in ruins. .
China might play an important role in the future of Syrian reconstruction, which is expected to cost tens of billions of dollars. Syria joined the Belt and Road Initiative last year, in which Beijing gains influence in developing countries through infrastructure projects.
Assad’s office said earlier that the Syrian leader had been invited by Xi and would travel with a high-level Syrian delegation.
The growing economic crisis in Syria has sparked protests in government-controlled parts of the country. Syria blames the crisis on Western sanctions and U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters who control the country’s main oil fields in the east, near the border with Iraq.
Diplomatic contacts between Syria and other Arab countries have increased since the February 6 earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria and killed more than 50,000 people, regarding 6,000 of them in Syria. Assad traveled to Saudi Arabia in May, where he attended the Arab League summit days following his country was reinstated in the 22-member group.
Since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011 with pro-democracy protests, before spiraling into civil war, Iran and Russia have helped Assad take back much of the country.
China has used its veto power at the UN eight times to stop resolutions once morest the Assad government, most recently in July 2020.
Assad’s last and only visit to China had been in 2004, the year following the US invasion of neighboring Iraq and at a time when Washington was putting pressure on Syria.
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