Vladimir Putin used a rare visit to Moscow by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to talk up the Kremlin’s potential to help broker a political settlement to the crisis as he tried to show the West Russia has become a major player in the Middle East.
Assad flew to Moscow on Tuesday evening to thank Putin personally for his military support, in a surprise visit that Russian state media cast as a diplomatic coup. It was Assad’s first foreign visit since the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011, and came three weeks after Russia launched a campaign of air strikes against …read more
Source: Daily News & Analysis
