Iran still hopes for good relations with Syria

Change of power in Syria

Iran still hopes for good relations with Syria

Syria’s ruler al-Assad played a strategic role in Iran’s Middle East policy. His fall is therefore a very painful defeat for Iran.

Iran hopes for continued good relations with Syria after the change of power in Damascus. “Bilateral relations with Syria have a long history, and we hope that this will continue with wisdom and foresight,” the Foreign Ministry wrote in a press statement.

Iran will therefore respect the decision of the Syrian people about their political future. Tehran hopes above all for a quick end to the military tensions and an early dialogue between all political factions in the country, the Foreign Ministry said, according to the Isna news agency.

According to unconfirmed reports, Tehran is already in contact with the Islamist alliance Haiat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to enable a peaceful withdrawal of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards from Syria. It is questionable whether the HTS will comply with this demand.

On Sunday, insurgents stormed the Iranian embassy in Damascus and, according to Iranian media reports, literally vandalized it. However, all Iranian diplomats and their staff had already left the embassy before the attack, according to the Foreign Ministry in Tehran.

For Tehran, Al-Assad was a strategically important ally within a self-declared resistance front against arch-enemy Israel. Syria also served as a corridor for the supply of Iranian weapons to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. That is why the country has generously supported Al-Assad financially and militarily in recent years – and labeled the Syrian HTS as terrorists.

With the change of power in Syria, Iranian Middle East policy – and in particular the fight against Israel – is reaching a dead end. Critics accuse the Iranian leadership of wasting billions of dollars with its political miscalculations in Syria.