Assad: Afghanistan exit shows US, allies declining role

Assad received on Sunday Russian President’s Special Envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentiev, Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Vershinin and an accompanying delegation.

Talks during the meeting dealt with the standing cooperation between Syria and Russia in the war on terror, and coordination on the economic and commercial levels.

Lavrentiev and Vershinin said that this visit comes within President Putin’s directives to boost this cooperation and expand work with Syria in all fields and at all levels, reiterating that Russia is ready to actively contribute to the process of reconstruction and rehabilitation of infrastructure destroyed by terrorism and to establish investment partnerships with Syria in the fields of energy and agriculture in a way that achieves the interests of the two friendly peoples and contributes to activating the Syrian economy.

The talks also tackled the latest developments in Syria, the region and the world.

Assad considered that those developments and changes, foremost of which is the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, indicate the retreat of the role of the US and its allies, which requires from countries of the region to work to enhance security and peace with the will of their peoples without external interferences.

The two sides also discussed meetings of the committee of discussing the Constitution which will start tomorrow, affirming the importance of continuation of the political track in order to reach agreements based on the principles of the Syrian people and keep Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.