Last update - 00:00 02/12/2007
Ahmadinejad: Iran's enemies cannot break our ties with Syria
By The Associated Press
Iran's adversaries cannot harm the strong and durable ties between Tehran and Damascus, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday during a meeting with a top Syrian diplomat, state media reported.
The meeting between Ahmadinejad and Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad came less than a week after Mekdad traveled to the United States to participate in Mideast summit.
During the trip, the Syrian delegation shook hands with U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice - indicating a slight thaw in the diplomatic chill
between Washington and Damascus.
Though Iran never directly criticized its ally, Syria, for attending the
summit in Annapolis, Maryland, Ahmadinejad and other top officials denounced the summit, saying it was doomed to fail, and scolded Arab nations for going. Tehran was not invited to the meeting.
But Syria's attendance and Iran's harsh criticism of the summit appeared to indicate at least some tension between the two allies - a rare event between the two countries in the past decades.
During his meeting Sunday with Ahmadinejad, Mekdad gave the Iranian president a written message from Syrian President Bashar Assad and underlined the strategic relationship between the two countries, Iran's official news agency, IRNA, reported.
Both Ahmadinejad and Mekdad said Iran-Syrian ties remained strong.
Enemies cannot damage real and firm Tehran-Damascus relations, state-run TV quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.Mekdad also said Syrian would never let anyone harm the friendly ties between Iran and Syria, IRNA reported.
Ahmadinejad thanked Mekdad for giving him Assad's message - which state media didn't provide details about - and described the Syrian president as a prominent figure in the Arab and Islamic world.
The hardline Iranian leader also repeated his criticism of the Annapolis
summit and warned Middle East countries to avoid allowing the U.S. to take advantage of them in favor of its ally, Israel.
"All should be highly watchful that (U.S. President) George Bush will not be able to take another concession from Palestine in the latter parts of his governing term," state-run TV quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during his meeting with Mekdad.
Syria said it decided to send Mekdad to the summit only after the issue of the Golan Heights was added to the agenda.
U.S. officials hoped the Annapolis meeting could mark a start to moving Syria out of its alliance with Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are Iranian-backed militant groups.
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