MOSCOW, September 14. /TASS/. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad expressed gratitude to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for the help in fighting the coronavirus infection and supplying food to the country at the Kremlin meeting on Monday, it is reported on the Russian leader’s website.

"Let me use this occasion and thank the Russian state, the Russian people and each citizen individually through you for the humanitarian aid which Russia graciously provides to long-suffering Syria, be it medicine that helps us to treat or prevent the spread of the coronavirus infection or the other help, including food and everything necessary that was provided by Russia to Syria. I thank you for it," he said.

Assad also extended gratitude to the Russian Foreign Ministry for defending universally accepted principles and norms of international law. "[Thank you] for the policy that your agency, the Foreign Ministry, pursued internationally <…> with the aim to stop the spread of terrorism in favor of those states that support it and set a goal for themselves to cunningly use terrorism to achieve their own goals," the Syrian leader added.