The visit comes just weeks after Iran’s landmark agreement to restore ties with regional rival Saudi Arabia and amid a flurry of diplomacy in the Middle East as regional relations with Iran and Syria shift.

Raisi and Assad would discuss “bilateral ties, shared economic and political issues, and positive developments in the region”, Syria’s state news agency SANA said.

Preparations for Raisi’s visit have been underway for days in the Damascus district housing Iran’s embassy, with concrete barriers in front of the mission removed, an AFP correspondent said.

Iran’s president would lead a senior “economic-political delegation” for his two-day trip at Assad’s invitation, Iranian state media reported.

The last Iranian president to visit Damascus was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in September 2010, while Assad has officially visited Tehran twice since the war broke out, the last time in May 2022.

Damascus-based analyst Osama Danura said the visit “will open a new page in the close relationship between the two countries”.

It “could focus on long-term economic strategies”, he added, noting Iran “has put itself forward strongly as a contributor to the reconstruction phase”.

Syria’s war has claimed more than 500,000 lives, displaced millions and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry.

Swathes of territory remain outside government control.

“A large number of agreements and memoranda of understanding” will be signed during Raisi’s visit, including on “energy and electricity”, Syria’s pro-government Al-Watan newspaper reported.

There would also be “discussions on a new Iranian credit line for Syria for investment in the power sector,” the daily added, in a country where blackouts can last around 20 hours a day.

In January 2019, Syria and Iran signed 11 agreements and memoranda of understanding, including a “long-term strategic economic cooperation” deal.

Both Tehran and Damascus remain under heavy Western sanctions.

The regional atmosphere following the Saudi-Iran rapprochement has made Raisi’s visit “more appropriate”, analyst Danura said

Read more on the original:

https://www.barrons.com/news/iran-s-president-heads-to-syria-for-first-trip-since-war-eyeing-rebuild-f87cc685