Iran offered Assad family safe haven, claims senior official

Iran’s deputy foreign minister has claimed that the government in Tehran offered to provide a safe haven two years ago for the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. However, Assad rejected the offer, explained Hossein Amir Abdollahian, saying that he will “stay to the last moment” in his country.

The minister said that Iran has provided the biggest support to the Assad regime since the ongoing war started in 2011. “We have paid a heavy price over the past few years in Syria and we lost some of our best forces there.” He added that the regime in Syria would have fallen within two or three years if it was not for the advisory support provided by Tehran.

Commenting on the international talks on the Syrian conflict scheduled for this weekend in Vienna, Abdollahian said that his government is working to get the best political gains by adhering to the red lines set by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

According to state news agency IRNA in June, around 400 Iranians have been killed in Syria. Last month, Turkey’s Anadolu reported that it compiled a list of 300 men from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who had been killed, including Afghan and Pakistani militants sent by Tehran to fight in Syria. A number of senior officers have also been killed, including Major-General Hossein Hamadani who served as assistant commander of the Jerusalem Army, and Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo in October.