Advisor to Iran’s supreme leader meets with Syria’s Assad

A senior foreign policy advisor to Iran’s supreme leader met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Tuesday to discuss international and regional developments, Iranian state media reported.

The talks between Kamal Kharrazi and Assad included developments in Syria’s foreign relations and the reestablishment of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the semi-official ISNA agency reported.

Iran has been a key ally of Assad’s regime since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011.

Kharrazi, who served as Iran’s foreign minister from 1997 to 2005, said on Monday that Iran considers Saudi Arabia “an important country in the region and influential in the Islamic world.”

“Iran and Saudi Arabia cannot exclude each other, but as the two main powers of the region, they should use each other’s capacities synergistically to ensure peace and stability and development of the region,” ISNA quoted Kharrazi as saying at a seminar on Tehran’s foreign policy in Damascus.

Saudi Arabia and Iran announced this month that they had reached an agreement, brokered by China, to reestablish diplomatic relations.

Saudi Arabia cut ties with the Islamic Republic in 2016 following an attack by supporters of the Iranian regime on its embassy in Tehran and consulate in Mashhad.