DAMASCUS (The Thursday Times) — Syria has said its new military agreement with Saudi Arabia is about training and rebuilding its own armed forces, not sending troops to fight the Houthis in Yemen, after days of conflicting reports that hundreds and possibly thousands of Syrian personnel were heading to the kingdom and to Yemen.
“There is no deployment of forces in Yemen and there is not even a plan in the near future for that,” Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani told a news conference in Damascus with his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi, on Monday. “Any military plan outside of the borders will be announced and will be spoken of and won’t be hidden.”
“Our military agreement with Saudi Arabia focuses on rebuilding Syria’s armed forces,” he said, adding that Syria needed the deal “more than any other side” as it rebuilds its army and institutions. He said the agreement was strictly between Damascus and Riyadh and involved no arrangement with Yemen’s internationally recognised government.
Advisers, not combat troops
The agreement was announced during President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s visit to Riyadh on November 4, his second trip to the kingdom in less than a month, where he met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Saudi Arabia also pledged about $403 million in loans for Syrian infrastructure and public services.
In the days that followed, media reports quoting Syrian, Yemeni and US sources said Syrian military personnel had gone to Saudi Arabia to offer advice and training, and that a larger deployment, put by some at 600 special forces and by a Yemeni source at as many as 3,000, was planned. A Syrian government official later told state media that soldiers had been sent to the kingdom for “training, expertise exchange and military consultations”.
Shaibani also condemned Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, which have intensified in recent weeks, and reaffirmed Syria’s support for the kingdom.
The Makkah pact
The Syrian official said the arrangement with Riyadh could lead to Syria joining the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, the mutual defence pact signed by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan in August. Syria had already been weighing membership, and the Turkish parliament approved the pact last week.
Pakistan and Syria have also been building military ties of their own. Syria’s defence minister met Pakistan’s military attaché in Damascus earlier this month to discuss closer cooperation.
