UAE top diplomat on first Syria visit in over a decade

Damascus: The United Arab Emirates’ top diplomat met Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Tuesday, state media said, in the first such visit by a top UAE official since Syria’s war began 10 years ago.

The visit is widely seen as a sign of regional efforts to end Assad’s diplomatic isolation as Syria grapples with a spiralling economic crisis caused by years of conflict and compounded by a spate of Western sanctions.

"President Assad received UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed," and an accompanying delegation, the official SANA news agency said. "During the meeting, they discussed bilateral relations between the two brotherly countries and ways to develop cooperation in different sectors that are of common interest," SANA added.

The UAE broke ties with Syria, which is backed by the UAE’s regional rival Iran, in February 2012, as the repression of nationwide protests demanding regime change was escalating into a devastating war.