“Syria eyes relations” with Ukraine, Kyiv pledges more food aid Reuters

DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Syria hopes for “strategic cooperation” with Ukraine, its new foreign minister told his Ukrainian counterpart on Monday, as Kyiv continues to build ​connections with the new Muslim rulers in Damascus amid the weakening influence of Russia.

Russia was a strong ally of ousted President Bashar al-Assad and granted him political asylum. Moscow has said it is negotiating a new regime in Damascus, including the end of Russian military installations in Syria.

“There will be strategic relations between us and Ukraine at the political, economic and social levels, and scientific relations,” the newly elected Syrian Minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, told Andrii Sybiha of Ukraine.

“Of course the Syrian people and the Ukrainian people have the same experience and suffering that we endured for 14 years,” he added, apparently drawing a comparison between Syria’s brutal 2011-2024 civil war and Russia’s occupation of Ukraine reaches its peak. – 2022 attack.

Sybiha, who also met with the new governor of Syria Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Monday, said that Ukraine will send more food supplies to Syria after the arrival of 20 flour on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced last Friday the delivery of the first batch of Ukrainian food aid to Syria with 500 tons of wheat flour as part of Kyiv’s aid project “Grain from Ukraine” in cooperation and the World Food Program of the United Nations.

NEW SUPPORT

Ukraine, a global producer and exporter of grains and oilseeds, traditionally exports wheat and corn to countries in the Middle East, but not Syria, which under Assad bought food from Russia.

Russian wheat supplies to Syria have been suspended due to concerns about the new government in Damascus and delayed payments, Russian and Syrian sources told Reuters in early December. Russia had supplied wheat to Syria using complex financial and logistical arrangements to avoid Western sanctions imposed on Moscow and Damascus.

Assad’s ouster by the Islamist group al-Sharaa, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has thrown the future of Russia’s military bases in Syria – the Hmeimim air base in Latakia and the Tartous naval base – into doubt.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the status of Russian military bases would be the subject of discussions with the new leadership in Damascus.

Al-Sharaa said this month that relations between Syria and Russia should serve common interests. In an interview published on Sunday, he said that Syria shares strategic interests with Russia, suggesting reconciliation, although he did not elaborate.