New Syrian FM to Visit Iran
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – New Foreign Minister of Syria Faisal Mekdad is going to make Tehran his first foreign destination after taking office, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced.
Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Sunday that the top Syrian diplomat will visit Iran in his first foreign trip as the foreign minister.
Mekdad is scheduled to hold meetings with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and other Iranian officials during the visit to Tehran, the spokesman added, without announcing an exact date for the ministerial visit.
In a telephone conversation with Mekdad in late November, Zarif offered condolences on the death of Walid al-Muallem, the former foreign minister of Syria, and underlined the continuation of strategic cooperation between Tehran and Damascus.
Muallem passed away at the age of 79 on November 16. He served as Syria’s top diplomat since 2006 while also serving as the country's deputy prime minister since 2012, over almost the entire nearly decade-long foreign-backed militancy in Syria.
