Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Tuesday that his country is subject to repeated attempts that aim to undermine its stability and weaken its regional clout, the state-run SANA news agency reported.

Assad made the remarks during his meeting with a visiting Ukrainian delegation, where he stressed "the Syrian people have foiled all previous foreign schemes and have proven once again that they are able to protect their homeland and build a new Syria though their determination to carry on with the reforms in tandem with confronting the foreign-backed terrorism."

For its part, the Ukrainian delegation expressed their solidarity with Assad in the face of the "foreign campaign against Syria."

Syria has been gripped by domestic unrest since last March. The protests started peacefully with calls of modest reforms. But the protesters' demands snowballed and threatened to the topple Assad' s rule. Moreover, protesters began to take up arms in the past few months.

Syria's government said in last December that "armed terrorist groups" had killed more than 2,000 army and security personnel, while the UN said recently that over 7,500 people have died due to the violence in Syria.

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