Alwaght-Over the last few weeks the flurry of high ranking diplomatic visits between Tehran and Damascus point to Iran’s critical role in solving Syria’s six-year crisis.
The latest such visit is one by Syria’s Prime Minister Imad Khamis, who started an official visit to Tehran on Tuesday where he held meetings with high ranking Iranian officials.
In a Wednesday meeting with Imad Khamis, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said the recent victory by Syrian forces against terrorists as the victory in Aleppo showed the world that “the Syrian people are capable of defending their homeland in the face of terrorists, and that the terror groups and their sponsors will never be able to achieve their goals".
“The Iranian government, people, and Leader [Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei] have always stood by the Syrian people and will always do so,” the Iranian president noted. Khamis, for his part, said the Aleppo victory owes to the perseverance and resistance of the Syrian people and army as well as Iran’s unstinting support. He asserted that the Syrians were intent upon returning security to their country.
Iran, Syria sign development agreements
During the visit by Khamis, Iran and Syria signed several agreements including a “license for a mobile phone operator, the transfer of 5,000 hectares for the creation of a petrol terminal and 5,000 hectares for farmland” in Syria. Iran will also have the right to operate phosphate mines in Sharqiya, around 50 kilometers south of the terrorist-held ancient city of Palmyra, and a deal for Iran to invest in an unnamed Syrian port. These agreements are an indicator that Syria is gradually entering a post-war period of reconstruction in which Iran will be a strategic partner of the Arab state.
The visit by Khamis to Tehran sends a very clear message regarding the close ties and collaboration between Iran and Syria.
There has been misleading information in public and diplomatic circles across the region that Iran has been sidelined in the Syrian issue and that Turkey and Russia are playing a leading role in the war-torn country. This deliberate propaganda has been thrown in disarray following the exchange of visits between high ranking Iranian and Syrian delegations. These important visits have further demonstrated that Iran is a major and critical player in the sensitive Syrian issue.
Security cooperation
Over the last two weeks, top ranking political and security delegations from Syria and Iran have visited each other's capitals carrying important messages. Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani visited Damascus several days back and held talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad as well as Major General Ali Mamlouk, the head of the Arab country’s National Security Bureau, during his stay in Damascus. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of the Iranian Parliament’s Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, also visited Damascus in early January where he met President Assad.
Syria’s Foreign Walid al-Moallem also visited Iran late December after a national ceasefire took effect in the war-ravaged Syria. Al Moallem was accompanied by the country’s security services chief Ali Mamlouk, who is also a special security adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
Iran’s fate is inseparable with that of Syria and to this effect, Iranian officials have openly declared that Tehran’s redline is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s remaining in power until his term in office is over.
The key to solving Syria’s crisis is the parallel collaboration of the trio consisting of Moscow-Tehran-Damascus which has the interests of the Syrian people at heart. Any other third party getting involved in the Syrian issue must do so with the exclusive permission of this tripartite group.
The frequent exchange of visits by military and security officials of Iran and Syria points to close collaboration between the two countries in all fields.
