Tuesday, 2 February, 2021 - 07:15
Lavrentiev meets with Bashar Assad in Damascus in October. (Syrian presidency)
London - Ibrahim Hamidi
The Kremlin's special envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev, who frequently travels Damascus, carried out a secret visit to the Syrian capital at the end of last week. Accompanied by “senior generals”, he met with president Bashar Assad, but why didn’t Moscow announce such a trip?
The obvious reason was because the Syrian Constitutional Committee was meeting in Geneva and because Damascus and Moscow are still trying to bridge the divide between them. The deeper reason has to do with the understandings in the Idlib province and ensuring that they hold amid the deteriorating military situation in southern and northeastern Syria. It is imperative that the ceasefire hold with the arrival of Joe Biden to the White House and as Syria prepares to hold presidential elections in July. Russia strongly supports the elections and wants it to serve as a turning point for Damascus’ ties with other countries.