Russia takes Syria lead after Assad's surprise Moscow visit
MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia seized the initiative over Syria after a diplomatic flurry that saw it host President Bashar al-Assad on his first foreign visit since 2011 and schedule talks involving the war's key players.
Assad met Vladimir Putin and thanked his Russian counterpart for launching air strikes against his opponents in Syria, with both leaders also agreeing during talks late Tuesday that political steps must follow military operations.
Moscow announced afterwards that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would meet Friday with US Secretary of State John Kerry and their Turkish and Saudi counterparts to discuss Syria.
Assad, who last visited Russia in 2008, had told Putin that the three-week-old Russian air war – which has prompted an outcry in the West – had helped to stop the spread of "terrorism" in his country.
The strikes are reported to have killed 370 people so far, a third of them civilians. Russia says the campaign targets the extremist Islamic State group and others it describes as "terrorists".
But rebels and the West accuse Moscow of seeking to prop up Assad and of striking moderate and Islamist opposition forces rather than just Islamic State jihadists.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Assad's "working visit" was at the invitation of the Kremlin. The Syrian presidency said Wednesday that Assad had returned to Damascus.
Putin said Russia was ready to do all it could to help secure peace in Syria, which has been ravaged by the conflict that began with anti-government protests in March, 2011.