Iran President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic will stand by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad “until the end of the road”.
The Syrian army faces mounting pressure after the Islamic State (ISIS) seized the ancient city of Palmyra in central Syria.
“The Iranian nation and government will remain at the side of the Syrian nation and government until the end of the road,” Iranian state news agency IRNA quoted Rouhani as saying yesterday in a meeting with Syria’s parliament speaker in Tehran.
“Tehran has not forgotten its moral obligations to the Syrian regime,” he added.
The visit by Syria’s parliament speaker Mohammad Al-Laham is the latest in a series of high-level visits between Damascus and Tehran which reflects the close coordination between the two countries as pressure mounts on Al-Assad.
Rouhani accused Arab and Western countries of misjudgement in their support for rebel groups in Syria.
“Unfortunately some countries misjudged and thought that terrorist groups would be a means for them to achieve their objectives, whereas sooner or later they were always going to be affected by the scourge of terrorism themselves,” he said.
Last week, Syrian regime forces and their militias lost control of most of Idlib.