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Assad thanks UAE for ‘massive’ aid after earthquake: Syria presidency – World
Damascus: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad thanked the United Arab Emirates on Sunday for its emergency response and pledged tens of millions of dollars in aid to quake-hit areas, the president said.
Meeting with UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Damascus, Assad said: “The UAE was the first to stand with Syria and send a lot of aid and humanitarian aid and search and rescue. one of the countries of the team.”
Nahyan arrived in Syria on Sunday, six days after a devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria killed more than 33,000 people, including more than 3,500 in Syria alone.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visits earthquake victims in Aleppo.
His visit was the first by a senior Gulf official since the 7.8-magnitude earthquake.
The Emirati minister last visited Damascus in January, when he also met Assad, a visit that marked warming ties with war-torn Syria after years of tension. .
The UAE pledged $13.6 million to Syria in the wake of the disaster before announcing a further $50 million in aid.
The oil-rich Gulf state has sent planes to Turkey and Syria to deliver emergency aid, food, medical supplies and rescue teams.
Suleiman Khalil, an official at the Syrian Ministry of Transport, said that since the earthquake, 16 UAE planes have arrived in Syria.
“Emirates Airlift operates 24/7 for earthquake victims.”
Emirati search and rescue teams have been stationed in the Syrian coastal city of Jabra since Friday, where they have established a base camp. They have worked in many places, sifting through the rubble for the remains of survivors and the dead.
Relations between Damascus and Abu Dhabi have been strained since the Syrian civil war broke out more than a decade ago. Syria has been expelled from the 22-member Arab League for bloodshed.
The UAE reopened its embassy in the Syrian capital in December 2018, a sign of the UAE’s attempt to bring the Assad regime back into Arab hands after years of resistance.
Last March, Assad visited the United Arab Emirates, his first visit to an Arab country in more than a decade.
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