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Syria reassures Iran on Mideast
AFP, December
2, 2007
TEHRAN, Dec 2,
2007 (AFP) - A top Syrian official on Sunday reassured Iran
that Syria's attendance at a US-hosted Middle East peace
conference would not harm relations between the two allies,
the state news agency IRNA reported.
For his part,
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the visiting
official that "enemies" could not damage ties between Tehran
and Damascus.
Iran had
expressed frustration over the attendance of Saudi Arabia
and top regional ally Syria at the conference last Tuesday
in Annapolis, Maryland that sought to jump-start peace talks
between Israel and the Palestinians.
"Syria will not
let anyone harm the two countries' close and solid ties,
even in the slightest way," Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister
Faisal Mekdad told Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr
Mottaki.
"It was evident
that the Annapolis meeting will not have any positive or
clear outcome," Ahmadinejad later told Mekdad in a separate
meeting, according to the ISNA news agency.
"We should be
alert that during the last days of his administration, (US
President) George (W.) Bush should not be able to get more
concessions from the Palestinians," he said.
Ahmadinejad had
angrily dismissed the conference as useless, saying the aim
of the meeting was to bolster Iran's arch-enemy Israel at
the expense of the Palestinians.
Mekdad himself
represented Syria at the conference, after Damascus agreed
at the last minute to take part.
Syria had made
its presence conditional on the inclusion of the issue of
the Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967, on
the agenda of the conference.
Mekdad
expressed his satisfaction with the talks, in a statement
released last week by the Syrian embassy in Washington.
"Despite all
the difficulties and differing opinions on this conference
in Annapolis, Syria hopes that our meeting today will
constitute a point of departure for a peace process," Mekdad
said.
Iran has made
non-recognition of Israel one of its main ideological themes
and was left isolated by the broad Arab presence at the
conference.
"The United
States and Israel are making a show of holding the Annapolis
conference but at the same time they present the corpses of
the oppressed Palestinians to their families," Mottaki was
quoted as saying.
Ahmadinejad has
repeatedly courted controversy by predicting Israel is
doomed to disappear, most notoriously calling in 2005 for
the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map". |
