Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan reviewed developments in Syria and the Middle East in a phone chat with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday.
According to WAM, the two leaders spoke about the relations between ‘the two fraternal nations’ and prospects of advancing cooperation across various fields. The conversation between the two touched upon issues of regional and international significance.
Many countries from the Middle East have stepped up economic and diplomatic ties with Assad, shunned after a bloody crackdown over a decade ago on peaceful protests against his rule.
Jordan  reopened its main border crossing with Syria in late September, to boost the countries’ struggling economies and reinforce the push by Arab states to reintegrate Syria. Jordan’s King Abdullah also spoke to Assad for the first time in a decade this month while the Egyptian and Syrian foreign ministers met last month on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, in what Egyptian media said was the first meeting at that level for about a decade.