Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged Monday to continue to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "politically, economically and militarily," reports AFP.
Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the Syrian army has been fighting multiple proxy wars against the Islamic State group, the U.S. and its Middle Eastern allies, and other rebel factions looking to overthrow the regime. The U.S. has spent by some estimates $1 billion on covertly arming and training Syrian rebels working to overthrow Assad, according to the Brookings Instituion.
Over the past two months, the Syrian regime has come under some of the heaviest pressure since the start of the war as insurgent groups make gains against government forces in southern, central and northwest Syria, according to Reuters.
But Damascus says it is confident that it can hold key territory with the help of allies like Russia and Iran.
"I received a promise from President Putin to support Syria politically, economically and militarily," Walid al-Muallem said during a televised news conference following a meeting with Putin, according to AFP.
Russia has remained a key Assad supporter since the start of the conflict, which has killed more than 220,000 people and sparked one of the greatest humanitarian crisis in the past decade.
In 2013, after President Barack Obama failed to trump up support to invade Syria over allegations that Assad had used chemical weapons against civilians, Russia helped broker a deal with Syria for international inspectors to oversee the removal its chemical arms stores, reported the Huffington Post.
The Wall Street Journal published an article Sunday night citing U.S. intelligence officials who say they are worried that an increasingly desperate Assad still has chemical weapons and will use them "in a last ditch effort to protect key Syrian government strongholds if Islamist fighters and other rebels try to overrun them."
Nevertheless, Putin told the Syrian envoy on Monday that Moscow's "policy to support Syria, the Syrian leadership and the Syrian people remains unchanged."
"We are convinced that in the end the Syrian people will be victorious," he said, according to AFP.
Putin also urged other Middle East countries to help Syria fight off the armed radical Islamist factions that now control vast swaths of Syrian territory, including parts of the country's capital. He raised the possibility of a new international coalition to fight the "terrorism."
"If the Syrian leadership considers (forming such a coalition) acceptable and possible, we will do our best to support you," he said. "And we will use our good relations with all the countries in the region to try to create this kind of coalition."
Muallem said he listened to Putin's proposal for a regional-international alliance with "great interest," but expressed skepticism, saying, "an alliance with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and the United States would require a very big miracle," according to AFP.
"How can these countries which have encouraged terrorism and funded it become anti-terror allies," he questioned.
