Russia grants Assad $1bn, opens trade mission in Damascus
Russia has pledged a total of $1 billion to the Syrian regime under President Bashar Al-Assad in order to support the building of the country’s infrastructure and economy and has also decided to open a trade mission in the capital Damascus.
Moscow’s support came amid the two-day conference on the return of Syrian refugees, which was held in Damascus yesterday and the day before, and to which a large Russian delegation was sent to represent the regime’s key ally.
The grant was announced by Mikhail Mezentsev, the head of the Russian National Defence Management Centre, for the purpose of contributing towards Syria’s reconstruction. He also said that Russian and Syrian officials were to sign eight memoranda of cooperation in the fields of energy, customs and educational activities as part of that contribution.
To ensure those agreements are properly facilitated and implemented, it was also announced that Russia would soon establish a trade office in Damascus.
The conference was attended by a number of countries including Iran, China, Venezuela, India, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan, Jordan, Lebanon, the UAE and Brazil – many of which do not hold a significant number of Syrian refugees. Meanwhile, countries which hold large numbers of the refugees such as Turkey and nations in the European Union refused to attend the conference.