World
In Damascus, Iran’s foreign minister says US troops in Syria should ‘go home’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Wednesday “advised” US troops in Syria to “go home.”
“We advise US troops to go home and we also advise the American authorities to leave the region to the people of the region,” Amir-Abdollahian said at a press conference alongside his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad in Damascus, the official IRNA news agency reported.
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Amir-Abdollahian said that the “illegal presence of American forces in Syria under the pretext of fighting terrorism” was among the topics he discussed during his talks with Mekdad.
Iran’s top diplomat also condemned Israeli attacks on Syrian soil, including an airstrike on Monday that inflicted damage on Aleppo’s international airport. The airport has been targeted multiple times this year, with two such attacks occurring in March
Amir-Abdollahian vowed that the Israeli attacks would not go unanswered.
In recent years, Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes against both Iranian-backed groups and Syrian military forces inside Syria.
Iran, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad, has played a key role in the Syrian conflict since its beginning in 2011, dispatching thousands of Iranian and foreign fighters to back the Syrian regime.
“We will continue to support the Syrian leadership, army and people until the situation in Syria becomes stable and flourishing,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Amir-Abdollahian said that he was headed to Syria to expedite the execution of agreements signed between the two countries earlier this year during a visit by Iran’s president to the war-torn country.
In May, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi made an official visit to Syria, during which the two countries inked a set of long-term cooperation agreements aimed at enhancing economic ties between the allies.
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