Iran and Russia have discussed Syria’s crisis in high-level meetings in both Tehran and Moscow.
Ali Shamkhani, the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, saw Alexander Lavrentiev, President Vladimir Putin’s envoy on Syria, in the Iranian capital on Thursday. The previous evening, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu conferred in Moscow.
The meetings were the first at top levels between the two allies of the Assad regime since the regime’s deadly chemical attack in northwest Syria on April 4 and US missile strikes on a regime airbase three days later.
No details were given. Instead, Shamkhani put out Iran’s standard line that while the Islamic Republic continues the fight against “terrorism” in Syria, it is always committed to finding a political solution: “We deem the military approach as effective only against those groups that refuse to lay down arms.”
Iran has put in thousands of its troops and Iranian-led Afghan, Iraqi, and Pakistani militiamen to prop up the Assad regime, as well as organizing the regime National Defense Forces supplementing a depleting Syrian Army.
Shamkhani said the US missile attack, carried out against the base from where the April 4 chemical attack was launched, dimmed the prospect of “reconciliation” in Syria and encouraged “terrorist groups”.
Implying that rebels were responsible for the attack that killed at least 93 people in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, he said an independent investigation — which was blocked by Russia in the UN Security Council — had to be established to “detect the paths through which chemical arms are delivered to the militants in Syria and in Iraq”.
According to Iranian media, Lavrentiev commended Iran’s “constructive” role in the peace process for Syria while stressing Moscow’s commitment to fighting groups that “shun the political process”.