Syria’s new president arrived in Qatar on Tuesday, state media said, for his first official visit to the Gulf state, a key backer of the new administration after longtime ruler Bashar Assad’s ouster, AFP reports.

The official Qatar News Agency reported Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani met Syria’s interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa on his arrival at Doha’s Hamad International Airport.

Earlier, Syria’s foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani posted on X that he was accompanying Sharaa on his “first presidential visit to the country that has stood by Syrians from day one and has never abandoned them.”

Also, he attached a photo of the Syrian and Qatari national flags to the post.

Qatar was one of the first Arab countries to support the armed uprising that erupted in Syria after then President Assad's government crushed a peaceful uprising in 2011.

But unlike other Arab countries, Doha did not restore diplomatic relations with Syria under Assad.