Syria Ends Russia’s 49-Year Tartous Port Lease
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RDA Gulf Correspondent - . January 22, 2025
- . Update: January 22, 2025 9:26 pm
Syria’s new administration has cancelled a 49-year agreement with Russia to administer the port of Tartus which houses Moscow’s lone naval station in the Mediterranean. The lease agreed in 2017 expanded Russia’s naval presence along the Syrian coast for the next 50 years. Tartus authorities reportedly cancelled the lease and demanded the immediate departure of Russian servicemen.
Tartous Customs Director Riad Judi confirmed the decision saying that “The agreement signed with the Russian company to invest in Tartous Port has been cancelled and all of its revenues have become for the benefit of the Syrian state.”
The withdrawal marks the end of Russia’s decades-long involvement in the eastern Mediterranean. For decades, Russia supported former President Bashar al-Assad’s regime bombing rebel forces,notably the now reigning Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies during the civil war that began in 2011.
