Amid Syria's war, Iran and Russia compete for influence and spoils ...

In the spring of 2019, Syria announced it was planning to lease the Tartus port to Russia and turn over the container terminal at the Latakia port to Iran, but the latter contract later fell through.Syria had also initially promised Iran a contract for phosphate mining but changed direction and awarded it in 2018 to a Russian company, which is set to receive 70 percent of revenue from extracted phosphate over 50 years, Yazigi said.“The Iranians have felt that they haven’t gotten a fair share of Syrian assets relative to their commitment — their military commitment but also their economic commitment,” he said. Last year, when Iran signed an agreement calling, in part, for it to help Syria rebuild its schools, Iranian Education Minister Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei emphasized the “importance of inserting the Farsi language in the Syrian educational system,” Syrian state media reported. The first of five mills erected under a contract with Iran and financed by an Iranian credit line opened two years ago, the Syrian state news agency reported.A Russian company, for its part, announced in 2017 that it had won a nearly $84 million contract to build four mills in central Homs province.