Iran, Syria agree to strengthen ties
Iran and Syria on Sunday agreed to strengthen relations between the two countries as it is an important stabilizing factor in the region.
Iranian Foreign Minister’s Special Assistant for Political Affairs Hossein Jaberi Ansari held a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-assad in Damascus.
The meeting came amid US pressures on Iran to pull out its military advisors from Syria. However, Tehran has repeatedly insisted that the presence of Iranian advisors in Syria is upon the request of Damascus.
Iran has no intention of leaving Syria regardless of US and Israeli pressure, Ali Akbar Velayati, the senior advisor to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Friday.
The statement from Velayati came in the wake of his meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin. A day earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Putin that Israel wants Iran to leave Syria.
Both the US and Israel want Iran to pull out of Syria, while Russia has warned it would be unrealistic to expect Iran to fully withdraw from the country.
Assad and Ansari also stressed the importance of the strategic relationship between Syria and Iran for the people of both countries and for the bene¿t of the region as a whole.
Ansari congratulated Syria’s people and leadership on the country’s achievements against terrorists in the city of Dara’a. President Assad stressed that these achievements reàect the solid will of the Syrian Army and the allied forces in liberating the entire Syrian territory from terrorism.