Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin signed a raft of documents in the Kremlin Tuesday to revive flagging economic ties and deepen military cooperation. Projects in areas including oil and gas production and investment aim to reverse a slump that reduced the volume of bilateral trade from around one billion U.S. dollars in 1992 to some 210 million in 2004. Russia will also write off 73 per cent of Syria's debts amounting to 13.4 billion dollars, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said after the consultations. In a joint declaration on friendship and cooperation, Moscow and Damascus also agreed to "develop traditional cooperation in the military-technical sphere with consideration of mutual interests and international obligations". But Syria's acquisition of modern Russian missiles was not a topic, President Assad said earlier, despite Israeli claims that a major arms deal is in the works. The leaders sought new impetus for ties that flourished in previous decades. "Syria is a country that had special and extremely warm relations with the Soviet Union and with Russia today," Putin told Assad, who arrived in Moscow Monday on a four-day visit. --More 2341 Local Time 2041 GMT
