Baqeri Meets Assad in Damascus

Iran's Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Tuesday. Assad's office indicated that "the Syrian president received the Iranian official this afternoon to discuss the bilateral relations between the close allies and the developments in the occupied Palestinian territories." Bagheri Kani also met with Palestinian factions at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, as his predecessor had done. Iran supports armed Palestinian factions, including Hamas. Bagheri Kani traveled to Syria from Beirut, marking his first trip abroad since assuming the acting position following the death of Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month.