Azerbaijan and Syria discuss energy cooperation as they rebuild ties

The leaders of Azerbaijan and Syria on Saturday pledged to deepen their cooperation particularly in the capacity sector as they moved to revitalize the ties that had been strained under former Syrian President Bashar Assad Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev expressed hope that the visit to Baku by Syria s interim Ahmad Al-Sharaa whose rebel forces toppled Assad in December would significantly contribute to the expansion of bilateral relations Al-Sharaa thanked Aliyev for Azerbaijan s brotherly help to Syria and stated that Assad s executive had harmed relations with various countries including Azerbaijan according to the Azerbaijan president s press utility The leaders also highlighted plans to to export Azerbaijani gas to Syria via Turkey and Azerbaijan s probable role in rebuilding Syria s potency infrastructure it commented The new bureaucrats in Damascus have strong relations with Turkey Azerbaijan s close ally Baku which also has close relations with Israel has in current months served as an intermediary to diffuse growing tensions between Turkey and Israel in the Syrian arena In April Turkey and Israel held technical talks in Azerbaijan to establish a de-escalation mechanism to prevent undesirable incidents in Syria Source