Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will travel to China on Thursday, the Syrian president announced, in his first visit to Beijing since the conflict that devastated his country began in 2011, Agence France-Presse reported on Tuesday, citing Agerpres.

The visit of the Syrian president, who will be accompanied by his wife, is “in response to the official invitation of President Xi Jinping,” the Syrian president said in a statement. Assad will also be accompanied by a political and economic delegation.

According to the pro-government Syrian publication al-Watan, Assad will take part in the opening ceremony of the Asian Games in Hangzhou on September 23.

China is one of Damascus’s allies and supports it in the UN Security Council, where it abstains every time during the voting of binding resolutions against Damascus.

Chinese officials have traveled to Syria several times for meetings with their counterparts in Damascus during the bloody conflict, but Assad’s visit to China was the first by a Syrian president since 2004.

In addition, this will be Bashar al-Assad’s third visit to a non-Arab country after 2011. So far, he has visited only Russia and Iran, the two main allies of the power in Damascus.

Bashar al-Assad’s visit comes as he begins a diplomatic rapprochement with many Arab countries in 2023 after years of isolation since the start of the war.

The normalization of these relations led to the return of Damascus to the Arab League and the participation of the Syrian president in an Arab summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in May.

The rapprochement also comes amid reconciliation between Tehran and Riyadh, the two major regional powers after a seven-year rift, which resumed relations in March in a deal brokered by China.