Assad plans to visit the Crimea in 2019
President of Syria Bashar al-Assad plans to visit the Crimea in April 2019 and is holding negotiations on the beginning of a commercial airline route between Syria and the Black Sea peninsula, TASS reported.
Members of the Crimean Delegation visited Syria this week, including the Russian Prime Minister of the Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov. The Crimea is under Western sanctions imposed after Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014.
Russia has been Assad’s key ally in the seven-year Syrian conflict. Leaders of two other Georgian separatist regions supported by Russia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, also visited Damascus this year.
The internationally recognized Ukrainian territory of Crimea was annexed by the Russian Federation in March of 2014 in the wake of the Ukrainian revolution. The Kremlin has faced international condemnation for its annexation of the Peninsula, leading many western countries to impose economic sanctions against Russia. In the United Nations, only Afghanistan, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Syria recognize Crimea as a legitimate federal subject of Russia.