Russia on Sunday said that Bashar al-Assad has left the country after giving orders there be a peaceful handover of power. Though it's unclear where he is, the Russian foreign ministry said that Moscow was not part of the talks relating to his departure.
Amid tensions, Russia's military bases in Syria had been put on a state of high alert.
Russia, a key ally of Assad, said that it was in touch with all Syrian opposition groups and urged all sides to refrain from violence.
While acknowledging the fall of the government, the Syrian foreign ministry issued a statement saying, a new page is being written in the history of Syria today.
"To inaugurate a national covenant and charter that unites the word of the Syrians... unites them and does not divide them, in order to build one homeland in which justice and equality prevail and in which everyone enjoys all rights and duties, far from one opinion. And citizenship is the basis," read the statement.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and expatriates of the Syrian Arab Republic and its diplomatic missions abroad will remain committed to serving all fellow citizens and managing their affairs, based on the trust they bear in representing the Syrian people, and that the homeland remains supreme, the statement added.
A popular uprising against Assad was suppressed in 2011 when Syrians first took to the streets and demanded his exit. It paved the way for a civil war with over 3 lakh people killed in 10 years of fighting.
International rights groups and prosecutors alleged widespread use of torture and extrajudicial killings in Syria's government-run detention centres.
Amid questions raised on Assad's disappearance, Turkey's foreign minister, Hakan Fidan said that he is "probably outside of Syria."
An end to decades of Alawite dynasty rule
Assad came to power in 2000 after his oldest brother, Basil, who his father had been grooming as his successor, died in a car crash in Damascus.
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His father Hafez Assad died in 2000 and soon after the parliament lowered the presidential age requirement from 40 to 34. Bashar's elevation was sealed by a nationwide referendum, where he was the only candidate.
A Soviet-style centralised economy was set up under the nearly 30 years of rule by Hafez. He pursued a secular ideology that sought to bury sectarian differences under Arab nationalism and the image of heroic resistance to Israel, reported The Associated Press.
During his rule, an alliance was formed with the Shiite leadership in Iran, sealed Syrian domination over Lebanon and set up a network of Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups.
While assuming charge after his father, Bashar freed political prisoners and allowed more open discourse. He was not equated to his father in the beginning. But during the Arab Spring, he had to rely on old alliances to stay in power.
Throughout, Assad relied largely on the same power base at home as his father: his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam comprising around 10% of the population.
When 2011 protests erupted in Tunisia and Egypt, eventually toppling their rulers, Assad dismissed the possibility of the same occurring in his country. However, when the Arab Spring wave reached Syria, his security forces staged a brutal crackdown while Assad consistently denied he was facing a popular revolt.
Syria’s minority groups including Christians, Druze and Shiites as well as some Sunnis feared the prospect of rule by Sunni extremists.
As the uprising spiralled into a civil war, millions of Syrians fled to Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon and on to Europe.