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Ahmadinejad: Enemies can't harm strong ties with Syria
AP, December 2,
2007
TEHRAN, Iran:
Iran's adversaries cannot harm the strong and durable ties
between Tehran and Damascus, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
said Sunday during a meeting with a top Syrian diplomat,
state media reported.
The meeting
between Ahmadinejad and Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister
Faysal Mekdad came less than a week after Mekdad traveled to
the United States to participate in Mideast summit.
During the
trip, the Syrian delegation shook hands with U.S. Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice — indicating a slight thaw in the
diplomatic chill between Washington and Damascus.
Though Iran
never directly criticized its ally, Syria, for attending the
summit in Annapolis, Maryland, Ahmadinejad and other top
officials denounced the summit, saying it 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 summit appeared
to indicate at least some tension between the two allies — a
rare event between the two countries 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.
Both
Ahmadinejad and Mekdad said Iran-Syrian ties remained
strong.
"Enemies cannot
damage real and firm Tehran-Damascus relations," state-run
TV quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
Mekdad also
said Syrian would "never let anyone harm the friendly ties"
between Iran and Syria, IRNA reported.
Ahmadinejad
thanked Mekdad for giving him Assad's message — which state
media didn't provide details about — and described the
Syrian president as a "prominent" figure in the Arab and
Islamic world.
The hardline
Iranian leader also repeated his criticism of the Annapolis
summit and warned Middle East countries to avoid allowing
the U.S. to take advantage of them in favor of its ally,
Israel.
"All should be
highly watchful that (U.S. President) George Bush will not
be able to take another concession from Palestine in the
latter parts of his governing term," state-run TV quoted
Ahmadinejad as saying during his meeting with Mekdad.
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.
U.S. officials
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. |
