Prominent Iranian Diplomat: Supporters Fed Up with Terrorists’ Violent Moves in Syria

Iranian Ambassador to Beirut Qazanfar Roknabadi underlined the necessity for the settlement of the Syrian crisis, and said terrorist groups in Syria have lost most of their advocates after showing continued violent and savage moves.
“The barbaric acts of the terrorist groups in Syria have increased the regional nations’ disgust for them and now many of their foreign supporters have stopped their aids to them,” Roknabadi said in a meeting in Beirut on Tuesday with Michel Aoun, the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the second largest bloc in Lebanon’s parliament.

Aoun, for his part, confirmed Roknabadi’s remarks, and said, “After the growth of extremist groups in Syria, the need for accelerating efforts to find a political solution to the crisis has now become more apparent than before, and every one has now realized this fact that extremist groups have no place in Syria and the region.”

In relevant remarks today, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said western politicians have started to realize that the overthrowing of Assad’s government might only lead to the worsening of the Syrian crisis.

The shift has been caused by the rise of jihadists in Syria and the threat of the country turning into a caliphate, the minister said.

“The attitudes are changing in western countries, they are becoming more realistic in their approach towards settling the Syrian crisis,” said Lavrov.

“The threat of terrorism in Syria, the threat of jihadists coming to power, the threat of creating a caliphate with extremist rules, the threat of violating the rights of minorities, or even depriving them of life, are the main problems.”

He also said “understanding that changing the regime is not the way to solve this problem” but a way to “facilitate the arrival of jihadists to power.”

What worries Sergey Lavrov is that his “western colleagues are trying to “flirt” with the so-called Islamic front”, which has recently been struggling for influence with the Free Syrian Army. Lavrov believes the Islamic front could be ideologically close to such Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist groups as al-Nusra.

Lavrov has doubts that the Syrian National coalition is in control of all of the rebel groups, currently fighting against Assad, and could represent them all at the Geneva-2 talks.