The Kremlin says Asma al-Assad has not filed for divorce from Bashar al-Assad

The British-born wife of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not seeking a divorce, a Kremlin spokesman said.

Turkish media reports said Asma al-Assad wanted to end her marriage and leave Russia, where she and her husband were granted asylum after a rebel coalition overthrew the former president’s regime and seized control of Damascus.

Asked about the reports in a press conference, Dmitry Peskov said: “No, they do not correspond to reality.”

He also denied reports that Assad was being held in Moscow and his property was frozen.

Russia has been a loyal ally of the Assad regime and offered him military support during the civil war.

However, reports in Turkish media on Sunday suggested that the Assads were living under strict restrictions in the Russian capital and that the former Syrian first lady had filed for divorce and wanted to return to London.

Ms Assad has dual Syrian-British nationality, but the British Foreign Secretary had previously said she would not be allowed to return to Britain.

David Lammy told Parliament earlier this month: “I would like confirmation that she is a sanctioned person and she is not welcome here in the UK.”

He added that he would “do everything in my power” to ensure that no member of the Assad family “finds a place in the UK.”

In a statement attributed to Bashar al-Assad last week, he said he never intended to flee Syria but that this was the case flown from a Russian military base at Moscow’s request.

Asma al-Assad, 49, was born in Britain in 1975 to Syrian parents and grew up in Acton, west London.

She moved to Syria in 2000 at the age of 25 and married her husband just months after he succeeded his father as president.

During her 24 years as Syria’s first lady, Ms. Assad attracted considerable interest in the Western media.

A controversial 2011 Vogue profile called her “a rose in the desert” and described her as “the freshest and most alluring first lady.” The article has since been removed from the Vogue website.

Just a month later, Ms Assad was criticized for remaining silent at the start of the Syrian civil war while her husband violently repressed pro-democracy activists.

The conflict subsequently claimed the lives of around half a million people, and her husband was accused of using chemical weapons against civilians.

In 2016, Ms. Assad told Russian state television that she had rejected a deal that would allow her a safe exit from the war-torn country to stand by her husband.

She announced that she would do it treated for breast cancer in 2018 and said she fully recovered a year later.

She was diagnosed with leukemia and began treatment for the disease in May this year, then-President Assad’s office said.

A statement said she would “temporarily” withdraw from public engagements.