PHOTO: Russian envoy Alexander Lavrientiev with Iran’s Secretary of the National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, on Monday

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As Russia faces growing political pressure over its bombing of Syria’s largest city Aleppo, Iran has hosted President Putin’s envoy.

Alexander Lavrentiev met high-level officials, including the Supreme Leader’s top aide Ali Akbar Velayati and the Secretary of the National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani.

“Iran-Russia cooperation in fighting terrorism in Syria is sustainable, comprehensive and strategic”, Alexander Lavrentiev said after the discussion with Shamkhani.

Russia’s aerial intervention since September 2015 — supporting an escalation of Iranian forces, Hezbollah units, and Iranian-led foreign militias doing much of the fighting on the ground — has been instrumental in propping up the Assad regime and pushing rebels back, especially in northwest Syria.

The Russian-regime bombing has helped impose a siege on Aleppo, threatening about 275,000 people in opposition-held parts of the city. After a brief ceasefire last month, the airstrikes were intensified, causing 500 deaths — almost all civilians — in two weeks.

The campaign has drawn international attention to Aleppo, with Russia being challenged in the UN Security Council for its “barbarity” and complicity in the Assad regime’s “war crimes”.

Moscow sent its envoy to Tehran as President Putin visited Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara, a sign that Russia may be pursuing a political line bringing together Turkey — a long-time supporter of the Syrian opposition and rebels — and Iran.

See Syria Daily, Oct 11: A Deal Between Russia and Turkey?

Declarations of Western Weakness

Lavrientiev used Monday’s meetings to repeat Russia’s line that the burden of action is on the US, saying that it must separate rebels from the jihadists of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) — even though there are few JFS fighters in Aleppo city.

The envoy tried to rebuff criticism of Russia’s part in the siege, including a September 19 attack on a UN aid convoy, saying that those in the US opposing the diplomatic resolution of Syria’s crisis pay no heed to the deplorable situation of Syrians.

Shamkhani took the opportunity to reiterate Iran’s declarations of Western duplicity and aid to extremists: “The expiration date of the West’s media and political shows with the purpose of covering up its double standard policies in the campaign against terrorism has passed and the world public opinion has become aware of the invalidity of such approaches.”

He then pushed the regime’s theme of Washington’s weakness, saying the US and its allies have grown passive in the face of initiatives by Iran, Russia, Syria and the “Resistance Front”. And he warned that their policies had fostered the rise of terror networks in Europe and the US.

American Mobile Phone Service Quietly Established in Iran

Iranian authorities have quietly allowed the American firm AT&T to establish mobile phone operations.

The deal was completed in March, with AT&T working through the local company RighTel.

The arrangement is a notable advance for the Rouhani Government, which has faced hardline opposition, bureaucratic difficulties, and US restrictions in completing arrangements in other sectors such as airlines and oil and gas.

Rouhani: “Unbelievable” That Saudi Kills Yemeni People “Without Reason”

President Rouhani has added his voice to the regime’s denunciation of Saudi Arabia over Yemen, fueled by a bombing last Saturday that killed more than 140 people in the Yemeni capital Sana’a.

Rouhani told reporters in Tehran upon arrival from a six-day visit to Southeast Asia:

The status quo in Yemen is utterly deplorable. An oppressed and innocent nation which does not have a very good economic situation is being bombarded by Saudi Arabia.

The President — whose policy of “engagement” has been buried by Iran’s deteriorating relations with Saudi Arabia since September 2015, added that it is “really unbelievable” that Saudi Arabia continues to kill the Muslim people of Yemen, particularly women and children “without any reason”.

See Iran Daily: Tehran Presses US & Saudi Arabia Over Yemen Bombing

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Monday: