President Bashar al-Assad made an unannounced visit to Moscow last night to thank Russian President Vladimir Putin for launching air strikes against Islamist militants in Syria.
The visit is believed to be President Assad's first foreign trip since the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011 and comes three weeks after Russia launched a campaign of air strikes in Syria on 30 September.
"First of all I wanted to express my huge gratitude to the whole leadership of the Russian Federation for the help they are giving Syria," he told Mr Putin, according to a Kremlin transcript.
"If it was not for your actions and your decisions the terrorism which is spreading in the region would have swallowed up a much greater area and spread over an even greater area."
Mr Putin said that positive developments on the military front in Syria would provide a basis for a long-term political solution, involving all political forces, ethnic and religious groups.
"We are ready to make our contribution not only in the course of military actions in the fight against terrorism, but during the political process.
"This will, of course, be in close contact with other world powers and with countries of the region which are interested in a peaceful resolution of the conflict," Mr Putin said, according to the transcript.
Mr Assad has now returned to Syria. "The visit to Moscow was yesterday and he is today in Damascus," a spokesman for the presidency said.
Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said a transition is needed in Syria which will guarantee the departure of Mr Assad.
Mr Davutoglu said there has been no change in Turkey's position that the Syrian government has lost legitimacy.
Meanwhile, President Putin and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan have discussed the surprise Moscow visit by telephone, the Kremlin revealed today.
"The situation in Syria has been discussed," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
"In this context, the leader of Russia informed his Turkish counterpart about the results of Syrian President Assad's visit to Moscow."
The Turkish presidency confirmed the phone call.
Mr Erdogan warned Mr Putin that an offensive in Aleppo could cause a "new wave of refugees", the Anatolia news agency reported.
Turkey backed President Assad's regime until the outbreak of the civil war in 2011, after which it switched its support to rebels fighting to overthrow him. Since then it has insisted the Syrian President must go.
However, last month Mr Erdogan suggested for the first time that Mr Assad could be part of a future transition.
