Syrian nation won’t allow foreign intervention

Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs says the Syrian nation will not allow foreign elements to draw the country’s political roadmap.

“The solution for the problems in Syria is solely political and the people of the country will not allow foreigners to decide for them from the outside,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a Saturday interview.

Amir-Abdollahian was making the remarks in reaction to the meeting of Syria’s foreign-backed opposition coalition, known as the Syrian National Coalition, in the Turkish city of Istanbul during which the opposition groups chose an interim prime minister.

The Iranian diplomat condemned foreign intervention in Syria, and slammed the arming the Syrian militants as well as the inaction toward the ongoing violence in the Arab country as the alliance of the “extremism and state terrorism.”

Amir-Abdollahian noted that the last efforts by the terrorist groups against the Syrian nation and government are doomed to failure and called on all the involved parties to take part in effective dialogue aimed at achieving national consensus in the Arab country.

In their Tuesday meeting, the Syrian National Coalition chose naturalized Syrian-born American citizen Ghassan Hitto as the prime minister of what it called an interim government.

Hitto was born in Damascus in 1963 and has lived in the US for decades. He lived in the state of Texas until recently.

The 50-year-old 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 government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.