Iran General NewsIran says ties with Syria rock solid

Iran says ties with Syria rock solid

-

AP: Iran’s adversaries cannot harm the strong ties between Tehran and Damascus, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday, a week after Iran appeared to chide Syria for its decision to take part in a Mideast summit in the United States. The Associated Press

By NASSER KARIMI

Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iran’s adversaries cannot harm the strong ties between Tehran and Damascus, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday, a week after Iran appeared to chide Syria for its decision to take part in a Mideast summit in the United States.

State-run television quoted Ahmadinejad as telling Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad that “enemies cannot damage real and firm Tehran-Damascus relations.”

Though Iran never directly criticized Syria for attending the summit in Annapolis, Md. last week, Ahmadinejad and other top officials said the summit was doomed to fail and scolded Arab nations for going. Tehran was not invited to the meeting.

But Syria’s attendance and Iran’s harsh criticism of the meeting appeared to indicate at least some tension between the two allies – a rare event in the past decades.

During his meeting Sunday with Ahmadinejad, Mekdad gave the Iranian president a written message from Syrian President Bashar Assad and underlined the strategic relationship between the two countries, Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, reported. No details of the message from Assad were given.

Both Ahmadinejad and Mekdad said Iran-Syrian ties remained strong.

Mekdad also said Syrian would “never let anyone harm the friendly ties” between Iran and Syria, IRNA reported.

Syria said it decided to send Mekdad to the summit only after the issue of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights was added to the agenda.

During the trip, the Syrian delegation shook hands with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice – indicating a slight thaw in the diplomatic chill between Washington and Damascus.

U.S. officials had hoped the Annapolis meeting could mark a start to moving Syria out of its alliance with Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are Iranian-backed militant groups.

Latest news

 Statistics show that New Year accidents’ deaths in Iran reached 585

Ahmad Shirani, the head of the Information and Traffic Control Center of the Iranian regime’s police, announced that the...

Land Subsidence in Critical Conditions in Isfahan

Mehdi Toghyani, a member of the Iranian regime’s Majlis (parliament), pointed to the occurrence of land subsidence in various...

Iran’s Actual Inflation Rate Higher Than Official Stats

The state-run Donya-e-eqtesad newspaper, in a report analyzing the "general sentiment" regarding inflation in 2023, has stated that households...

Iranian Workers’ Monthly $136 Wages Can’t Cover $500 Expenses

The lives of a significant portion of the Iranian population are marked by uncertainty, largely because the Iranian economy...

Iranian Nurses Earn Twice Their Wages in Ride-Hailing Services

Reza Aryanpour, a member of the regime’s Majlis (parliament) Health and Treatment Commission, highlighted the growing trend of nurses...

Iran: Unprecedented Record of 152 Million Liters of Gasoline Consumption Per Day

On March 19, Iran set a new historical record in gasoline consumption with 152 million liters consumed in one...

Must read

Iranians turn out in force to demand EU policy change

Iran Focus: Thousands of Iranians from as far away...

Recap of Atrocities in Iran During August 2021

The Iran Human Rights Monitor (Iran HRM) recently published...

You might also likeRELATED
Recommended to you