ANKARA

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has passed away, the country’s official SANA news agency reported early Monday.

The report did not disclose the cause of his death.

Muallem, 79, has been the regime's foreign minister since Feb. 11, 2006.

He has been noted as one of the Bashar al-Assad regime's biggest supporters of Syria’s civil war.

Born in the capital Damascus in 1941, Muallem was Syria's ambassador to the United States from 1990-1999.

*Writing by Merve Berker