“Various parties like the European Union and Oman urged Iran to take part in the Vienna conference on Syria,” said Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, talking to IRIB on Vienna Syrian talks on Saturday night.
Strongly rejecting the reports that the Iran has agreed to a plan for the removal from power of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in six months, he asserted “We had attended the meeting to emphasize Iran’s readiness to take appropriate steps towards a political solution to resolve the Syrian crisis.”
Deputy FM said Iran did not allow the participants to decide on the fate of the Syrian people adding “the opposing side was seeking to get what they had failed to achieve by a 5-year support of terrorists in military and security fields.”
He deemed the conference as challenging and complicated and noted “although Iraq, Lebanon, Oman and Russia had constructive roles, Iran was faced with major challenges during the meeting because, fortunately, the joint statement of the meeting was summarized within the framework of the principles of Iran, Russia, Syria as well as the international law.”
He added that the Iranian delegation was focusing on a political solution to the Syrian issue but Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir raised certain unbalanced allegations which were faced with harsh responses of our country’s foreign minister.
“The Saudi FM had attended the meeting with the intension of shortening the six-month ‘transition’ period in Syria followed by elections to decide the fate of the Syrian president making incorrect statements which ignored the rights of the Syrian people to decide on their own future,” he noted.
He underlined: “Iran’s Zarif once ignored Adel al-Jubeir’s remarks but for the second time he clearly dismissed the Saudi official’s unfounded charges stating Saudi Arabia’s inappropriate actions towards Syria and some regional issues.”
Enumerating the most important issue disscussed at Vienna conference like attention to the problem of refugees, humanitarian issues and the preservation of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria, Amir-Abdollahian noted Ithat ran merely announced its explicit position towards the Syrian crisis without interfering in the political future of the country.
“With reasoning and logic, Iran’s political views within the framework of international law replaced the US proposal which was supposed to get approved,” added the official maintaining “not all Western countries were opposing Iran and EU’s foreign policy representative as well as foreign ministers of Italy and Germany made efforts to balance the views while France and Britain held the harshest positions.”
On Russia’s intentions in fighting terrorists in Syria, Amir-Abdollahian said, “Russians had allies in the Arab region including Iraq, the former Libya and the current Syria; believing that the US has betrayed them in Libya, Russians consider Syria as their last base.”
He enumerated other reasons for the Russian presence in Syria like expansion of terrorism and extremist movements and said the Islamic Republic of Iran has tried to exploit the capacity of Russia in accordance with its regional interests.
Pointing to the movements of ISIL between Syria and Iraq and their approach to Iran’s borders, deputy FM underlined “strategic objective of Iran is to consider provision of maximum security and national interests in any action.”
He deemed the future of Bashar al-Assad as one of the key topics discussed at the meeting adding “some countries believed in rapid stepping down of al-Assad while others held a neutral view but Iran emphasized that no country is qualified to comment on the political future of Syria.”
Amir-Abdollahian reviewed other proposals of Iran presented to the Vienna meeting including the need for neighbors to offer help, not to facilitate the entry of terrorists into Syria, the need for the anti-terrorist coalition to collaborate with the Syrian army in suppressing terrorists as well as formation of a national dialogue among all Syrian parties except for the terrorist groups.
“Although some countries act selectively in dealing with terrorist actions, the Western countries were more than ever concerned about Syrian refugee crisis expressing readiness to take effective measures in this regard,” he underlined.
The official continued “for Syria-Syria talks, the border between the opposition believing in political dialogue and the armed groups attached to the terrorists must become clear and the participants need to be capable of representing the Syrian society.”
He stressed the possibility of achieving ceasefire in Syria and said, “if certain countries stop supporting terrorists, ceasefire will be attainable within a few months.” Iran has suffered from severe international sanctions for several years while ISIL is selling part of Iraq and Syria’s oil to some foreign companies; despite various resolutions issued against them, their revenues are circulating in the international financial systems, the official noted.
Responding to ISIL claims about the attack on the Russian airliner, Amir-Abdollahian said: “on the basis of our data, ISIL does not possess precise equipment to target an airplane at a high altitude; if the plane did not crash due to technical reasons, we should track countries that opposed Russia’s military action in Syria.”
Referring to wrong strategy of Saudi Arabia in Attacking Yemen, he said, “Yemen war will not have a winner and only a political resolution can solve the existing crisis.”
“Today, Saudi Arabia is in desperate need of attending the negotiation table and it was clear from the beginning that Saudi’s military adventure would not increase its security.”
He expressed hope that the Saudis will behave wisely by returning to the political path and allowing Yemeni people to decide on their own future.
Deputy FM finally deemed the current situation in the occupied Palestinian territory as a result of the Zionist’s incorrect actions as well as the Western support for some of their wrong actions like continued settlement and Judaization of Jerusalem.
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