Iran’s President-Elect: Syrian Nation Should Decide Own Fate

Iran’s President-Elect Hassan Rouhani underlined the Islamic Republic’s support for a peaceful and political solution to the Syrian crisis, saying that the Muslim country’s people should decide their own fate.

“Syria’s people are in charge of resolving the Syrian crisis and the Syrian nation is the final decision-maker in Syria who determines the fate of that country …,” Rouhani said in his first press conference after winning the presidential election on Friday

He underlined Iran’s strong opposition to terrorism, and expressed the hope that “peace and tranquility would be restored in Syria soon with the help of the regional and the world countries, and that whatever happens in Syria would be exactly what the Syrian nation wants.”

Iranian officials have repeatedly underlined that Tehran is in favor of negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition groups to create stability in the Middle Eastern country.

Last November, Iran hosted a meeting between the representatives of the Syrian government and opposition to encourage them to start talks to find a political solution to their problems. The National Dialogue Conference kicked off work in Tehran mid November with the motto of ‘No to Violence, Yes to Democracy”.

The meeting brought together almost 200 representatives of various Syrian ethnicities, political groups, minorities, the opposition, and state officials.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.

The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.

In October 2011, calm was almost restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies sought hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots to topple President Bashar al-Assad, who is well known in the world for his anti-Israeli stances.