Strengthening Tehran-Damascus strategic ties and the cooperation against terrorism will help safeguard security and stability in both states, a lawmaker said on Thursday.
Chairman of the Majlis Foreign Policy and National Security Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi made the remark after talks with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, IRNA reported.
"The world, especially regional countries, will benefit from such military collaboration whose fruit will be the restoration of peace to the crisis-hit Middle East."
Paying tribute to Iranian martyrs who laid down their lives to defeat terror and extremism in the Arab country, the official reiterated said, "such exceptional valor and heroism is an indication that tie between Iran and Syria are deeply rooted."
Ready to Deploy Troops
Iran is consider the deployment of troops to Syria if the government in Damascus makes a request the MP was quoted as saying by domestic and foreign news outlets on Thursday.
"If Syria makes a request [for Iranian forces], we will consider the request and make a decision," said Boroujerdi, asserting "What is indeed important is Iran's steely determination to fight extremism…and [to this end] we have supplied aid and weapons and sent military advisors to Syria and Iraq."
Except for Iran, Russia, another key ally of the embattled government in Syria, has offered direct military support in the form of aerial campaign that began on September 30.
Boroujerdi told reporters the "military operations" currently under way in Syria "are in line with the search for a political solution and peace" in that country, in an apparent reference to Moscow's airstrikes that have dislodged command and control centers of the medieval militia for more than two weeks.
The lawmaker censured the US-led coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes in Syria since last year, saying it had "failed despite billions of dollars" spent on the visibly futile mission that did nothing to weaken the so-called Islamic State and its mercenaries reportedly from 70 countries.
