Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday received a Russian delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov and joined by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as well as a number of diplomats.
Lavrov, whose visit to Syria is the first since 2012, is scheduled to meet also with the Syrian foreign minister Walid Al-Moallem.
Syria's Supreme Constitutional Court has accepted three applications out of 51 for candidacy for this month's presidential election in the conflict-stricken Arab country.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has issued a legislative decree, authorizing the release of prisoners including those convicted for misdemeanors as well as minors facing certain charges.
Russia says the United States makes use of the Daesh terrorist group to impede a political solution to the decade-long crisis in Syria and supports separatist militants in a flagrant violation of international resolutions.
A convoy of a dozen US military trucks has carried tons of grain from Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.
Dozens of trucks carrying Syrian wheat crop from Hasakah province have crossed the border into Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region amid reports that the US military is systematically smuggling basic commodities out of Syria.