The British-born spouse of deposed Syrian president Bashar al-Assad will not be searching for a divorce, a Kremlin spokesman has mentioned.
Stories in Turkish media had instructed Asma al-Assad wished to finish her marriage and go away Russia, the place she and her husband had been granted asylum after a insurgent coalition overthrew the previous president’s regime and took management of Damascus.
Requested concerning the studies in a information convention name, Dmitry Peskov mentioned, “No, they don’t correspond to actuality.”
He additionally denied studies that Assad had been confined to Moscow and that his property belongings had been frozen.
Russia was a staunch ally of the Assad regime and supplied it army help in the course of the civil conflict.
However studies in Turkish media on Sunday instructed the Assads had been residing below extreme restrictions within the Russian capital, and that the previous Syrian first woman had filed for divorce and wished to return to London.
Mrs Assad is a twin Syrian-British nationwide, however the UK international secretary has beforehand mentioned she wouldn’t be allowed to return to Britain.
Talking in parliament earlier this month, David Lammy mentioned: “I would like it confirmed that she’s a sanctioned particular person and isn’t welcome right here within the UK.”
He added he would do “all the things I can in my energy” to make sure no member of the Assad household “finds a spot within the UK”.
In an announcement attributed to Bashar al-Assad final week, he mentioned he had by no means supposed to flee Syria, however he was airlifted from a Russian military base at Moscow’s request.
Asma al-Assad, 49, was born within the UK to Syrian mother and father in 1975 and grew up in Acton, west London.
She moved to Syria in 2000 on the age of 25 and married her husband simply months after he succeeded his father as president.
All through her 24 years as Syria’s first woman, Mrs Assad was a topic of curiosity in western media.
A controversial 2011 Vogue profile known as her “a rose within the desert” and described her as “the freshest and most magnetic of first girls”. The article has since been faraway from the Vogue web site.
Only one month later, Mrs Assad was criticised for remaining silent whereas her husband violently repressed pro-democracy campaigners in the beginning of the Syrian civil conflict.
The battle went on to assert the lives of round half 1,000,000 folks, together with her husband accused of utilizing chemical weapons in opposition to civilians.
In 2016, Mrs Assad informed Russian state-backed tv she had rejected a deal to supply her protected passage out of the war-torn nation in order to stand by her husband.
She introduced she was being treated for breast cancer in 2018 and mentioned she had made a full restoration one yr later.
She was recognized with leukaemia and commenced remedy for the illness in Might this yr, the workplace of then-President Assad introduced.
A press release mentioned she would “briefly withdraw” from public engagements.
