Kremlin denies reports Asma al-Assad is seeking divorce and a return to London | Asma al-Assad

The Kremlin has denied Turkish media experiences suggesting that Asma al-Assad, the British-born spouse of the ousted Syrian chief, Bashar al-Assad, is looking for a divorce and hoping to return to London.

Bashar al-Assad fled to Moscow earlier this month, the transponder of his plane switched off as he left to keep away from detection, after a lightning insurgent advance introduced an finish to his household’s 50-year rule.

In a press release attributed to Bashar al-Assad on Telegram, he later insisted his departure from Syria had not been deliberate however that he had been pressured to depart after his place at a Russian-controlled airbase got here “beneath intensified assault by drone strikes”.

His household has lengthy had ties to Moscow, with kin shopping for up tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}’ value of properties in Russia through the years.

On Monday, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, additionally rejected Turkish media experiences suggesting Assad had been confined to Moscow along with his property belongings frozen. “No, they don’t correspond to actuality,” Peskov advised a convention name.

Russian state media have but to launch any images of Assad contained in the nation, hinting that Moscow is keen to maintain him out of the headlines because it seeks to forge ties with Syria’s new management.

Whereas the Assads’ standing as world pariahs had left them with restricted journey choices, Russia was touted as a powerful choice as it could in all probability permit for higher medical look after Assad’s spouse, who was identified with leukaemia in Could.

Born within the UK in 1975 to oldsters initially from Syria, Asma al-Assad, 49, grew up in Acton, west London. She left her job as an funding banker in 2000 to marry Assad.

She swiftly grew to become a divisive determine around the globe, accused of utilizing her British schooling and upbringing to attempt to masks the brutality of her husband’s crackdown on dissent.

In 2011, weeks earlier than pro-democracy campaigners started taking to the streets of Syria, Vogue ran a now-removed profile of her titled “A Rose within the Desert”. It described her as “the freshest and most magnetic of first women”, avoiding any point out of the greater than 5,000 civilians already killed by her husband.

In 2020 the US imposed sanctions on the Assads and several other of their kin, with the then secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, describing the measure as an effort to finish the regime’s “useless, brutal struggle” towards the Syrian individuals.

In a press release, Pompeo added: “I’ll make particular notice of the designation for the primary time of Asma al-Assad, the spouse of Bashar al-Assad, who with the help of her husband and members of her Akhras household has turn into one in every of Syria’s most infamous struggle profiteers.”

Whereas her UK belongings have been frozen in March 2012, she retains British citizenship. Earlier this month the UK international secretary, David Lammy, made clear she was not welcome. “I’ve seen talked about in the previous few days, Asma Assad [is] probably somebody with UK citizenship which may try to come back into our nation, and I need it confirmed that she’s a sanctioned particular person and isn’t welcome right here within the UK,” he advised parliament.

The prime minister, Keir Starmer, was additionally requested about whether or not she could be stripped of her British citizenship, as was accomplished with these recognized to have joined the Islamic State group. It was “far too early” to debate such a measure, he stated.

With contributions from Reuters