Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud began a visit to Syria on Tuesday and met with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Al Jazeera reports.
This is the first such face-to-face meeting between the head of the Saudi Foreign Ministry and the Syrian president since the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011.
The statement of the Saudi Foreign Ministry notes that the visit of the head of the department is aimed at achieving a political settlement of the crisis in Syria to establish security and stability in the country.
Earlier, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Miqdad visited Saudi Arabia, also for the first time since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011.
Saudi Arabia has openly supported the Syrian rebels for a long time, and stood up for the overthrow of Assad.
The situation changed after the devastating earthquake that affected Syria and Turkey in early February of this year. The Saudi Foreign Minister said that a consensus is emerging in the Arab world that a new approach to Syria will be needed to resolve humanitarian crises, requiring negotiations with Damascus.
