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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Ahmadinejad, Assad vow support for resistance |
| 2009-05-07 |
| [Beirut Daily Star: Region] Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad slammed Zionism as "occupation" and "aggression" Tuesday as he delivered his latest diatribe against Israel on a visit to key Middle East ally Syria. "The Zionist occupiers are destructive microbes, because Zionism itself is occupation, aggression, the use of assassination and annihilation," he told a joint news conference with President Bashar Assad in the Syrian capital. "Zionism was created to threaten us. To support the Palestinian resistance is a humanitarian and popular obligation," Ahmadinejad said in remarks in Farsi that were translated into Arabic. "Syria and Iran are united in supporting the Palestinian resistance," Ahmaadinejad said. Ahmadinejad asked why it is the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza that is blacklisted by the European Union and the United States, and not Israel after its devastating war on the territory at the turn of the year. "They've attacked Gaza, killing people in their own land and massacring women and children ... and yet it's the Palestinians they accuse of terrorism," he complained. Ahmadinejad also hit out at the continuing US military presence on Iran's borders. "They weren't invited in. They're unwelcome visitors who should leave Afghanistan and the borders of Pakistan," the Iranian president said. "We don't want honey from bees that sting us. Efforts must be made to rid the region of the presence of foreigners ... and to reform the unjust global political and economic system." Ahmadinejad said that Iran and Syria were standing together to "resist foreign intervention and the major powers trying to impose their hegemony over the region." The United States "has put pressure on Syria and Iran, but it needs us and wants to develop relations," he said. "Circumstances are changing rapidly in our favor. We are on the road to victory." Assad in turn hailed what he called the "natural" strategic alliance between Syria and Iran, which he said was "built on shared principles and interests." "We agreed to support reconciliation in Iraq and look forward to the departure of the last foreign soldier," he added. The United States and its key regional ally Israel have long sought to sour the three-decade-old alliance between Iran and Syria, which are the main foreign backers of the Lebanese group Hizbullah as well as Hamas. The Obama administration has stepped up US contacts with Damascus and the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs Jeffrey Feltman is due to leave for the Syrian capital on Wednesday on his second visit this year. In March, he made the first high-level US trip to Syria since 2005. But on Monday, Washington baulked at calls by the Syrian president for it to open talks with Hamas and Hizbullah, saying the two groups had to renounce violence first. "We would like to see Syria change the behavior of these two groups," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said. Ahmadinejad was also due to meet exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal during his Damascus visit. |
| Posted by:Fred |