The Foreign Ministry rejected as “diversionary” recent remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who said Iran should withdraw what US sees as misplaced support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to help settle the current conflict in the Arab country.
“Comments by the US secretary of state regarding Iran’s… role in Syria is diversionary and fails to reflect the realities of the Syrian crisis,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Marzieh Afkham said on Thursday, IRNA reported.
Kerry said on Tuesday the US administration hopes Russia and Iran will play a positive role in Syria and back a political transition for the country to resolve the crisis, adding that Russian and Iranian support for Assad is misplaced and will only prolong the war, according to the AP.
Syrian-Syrian Talks
Tehran has always stressed that, as substantiated by developments so far in the war-torn country, a political solution involving Syrian-Syrian talks is the only way to resolve the crisis, Afkham told reporters.
“From our point of view, a solution will prove efficient only if it is based on the realities on the ground and is built around respect for will and demands of the Syrian people.”
The West has been pushing for Assad’s resignation as part of any settlement. However, Tehran says it is the Syrians who should vote to decide the Syrian leader’s fate.
Afkham denounced “biased” policies of the US and its allies to set preconditions for a diplomatic solution, saying, “Abandoning the wrong and biased policies of the past, which only help fuel the crisis and leads to loss of more innocent lives would be an effective step to end the war in Syria.”
“A simple analysis will show that such wrong policies have even interfered with United Nations efforts in this relation.”
She reiterated that any plan failing to envisage “serious” confrontation with terrorist groups is doomed and there would be no end to the Syria conflict unless western countries drop their preconditions.
