Assad will stay in office until his term legally over

A senior Iranian lawmaker has criticized the Syrian opposition’s move to name a naturalized Syrian-born US citizen as the head of what they call an interim government.

“The move that was made today by the Syrian opposition [and] hosted by Turkey to select an interim prime minister is a childish game,” Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the Chairman of Iran Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said on Tuesday.

“Despite all foreign pressures and the support from the United States and its regional allies for terrorists, the government of [Syrian President] Basher al-Assad will continue to work until the end of the presidential term in 2014,” he stressed.

The comments came hours after Syria’s foreign-backed opposition group, known as the Syrian National Coalition, convened in Istanbul and picked Ghassan Hitto as the prime minister of the so-called interim government.

Boroujerdi said the move will further complicate the situation in Syria, and urged the Turkish government to help end the turmoil and killing of innocent people in the Arab country, “instead of helping the protraction of the crisis.”

Hitto, 50, who lived in Texas until recently, moved to Turkey last November in an effort to manage military aid to areas held by the foreign-backed militants who are fighting against the Assad government.

The choice followed on the heels of remarks made earlier in the day by the US Secretary of State John Kerry, who said Washington would not “stand in the way” of European countries if they decided to arm the militants fighting against the Syrian government.

On Thursday, the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Paris and London would arm the militants even if other EU members do not agree with lifting a current arms embargo on Syria.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of Army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.

The Syrian government has said that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and that a very large number of the militants operating in the country are foreign nationals.

Several international human rights organizations have condemned the foreign-sponsored militants of committing war crimes.