Iran’s FM in Syria to discuss Ukraine war, ties with Arabs

DAMASCUS, Syria — The overseas ministers of Iran and Syria, two allies of Russia, will talk about the continuing warfare in Ukraine and different developments throughout a gathering in Damascus Wednesday, Syria’s overseas minister stated.

Faisal Mekdad spoke to reporters at Damascus airport shortly after his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, arrived for talks with high Syrian officers.

Iran is a robust ally of President Bashar Assad and has despatched 1000’s of Iran-backed fighters from across the area to bolster Syrian authorities forces towards opponents within the 11-year Syrian battle. Russia has additionally supported Assad militarily, turning the tide of the warfare in his favor. The Syria warfare has killed practically half one million individuals and displaced half the nation’s pre-war inhabitants of 23 million.

“We are going to talk about the massive developments in the present day after Russia’s army operation in Ukraine,” Mekdad stated. “We are going to talk about what’s behind that and we are going to talk about our mutual stances towards these developments.”

Throughout his go to, Amir-Abdollahian can be more likely to talk about the most recent developments in Iran’s negotiations to revive Tehran’s nuclear take care of world powers, Assad’s go to to the United Arab Emirates final week, which marked his first to an Arab nation for the reason that Syria warfare broke out, and conferences of the constitutional committee in Geneva between the Syrian authorities and opposition.

Amir-Abdollahian stated in Farsi that strategic relations between Iran and Syria are at their greatest. He later made a uncommon remark in Arabic, saying: “We’re in the identical trench, and we help Syria’s management, authorities and other people.”

Like Iran, Russia a robust ally of Syria and joined the warfare in 2015, which helped Assad’s forces regain management of a lot of the nation. Russia has tons of of troops deployed in Syria and an air base on the Mediterranean coast.

Nuclear negotiations practically reached completion earlier this month earlier than Moscow demanded that its commerce with Iran be exempted from Western sanctions over Ukraine, throwing the method into disarray. Negotiators have but to reconvene within the Austrian capital, and its unclear precisely what hurdles lie forward.

Amir-Abdollahian’s go to additionally comes two weeks after two members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had been killed in an Israeli strike close to the capital Damascus.

Days later Iran claimed duty for a missile barrage that struck close to a sprawling U.S. consulate advanced in northern Iraq, saying it was retaliation for repeated Israeli strikes in Syria. The Revolutionary Guard stated it fired off 12 cruise missiles at what it described as a “strategic middle” of the Israeli spy company Mossad, a declare denied by Iraqi officers.