A Syrian delegation, led by newly appointed Foreign Minister Assad Hassan al-Shibani, has arrived in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, the Syrian official news agency SANA reported, citing a Foreign Ministry source, Reuters and BTA reported.
The delegation also includes Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Kasra. The visit comes less than a month after Syrian rebels ousted President Bashar al-Assad on December 8, Reuters reported.
The war in Syria has killed more than 528,500 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday, quoted by Agence France-Presse and BTA.
Among those killed are more than 181,939 civilians, of whom at least 15,207 are women and 25,284 are children.
In the past 2024, 6,777 people have died. Among them are civilians, 3,598, of whom 240 are women and 337 "children under the age of 18," the non-governmental organization, which is based in the United Kingdom but has a large network of sources in Syria, reports.
The center says that 4,360 people were killed in 2023, of whom 1,900 were civilians.
The conflict in Syria began on March 15, 2011, with a popular uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, to which the authorities responded with repression. Subsequently, foreign powers and jihadists from around the world intervened in the conflict.
Last month, a rebel coalition toppled Assad's regime.