Tabnak – Amid reports that the United States and Israel are trying to persuade Moscow to end its partnership with Iran in Syria, a high-ranking Iranian official who is in Moscow to hold talks with the Russian officials talks about the continuation of coordination with Moscow and Damascus to fight the terrorists.
Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Leader of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, says Iran coordinates its military presence in Syria with Moscow and Damascus.
Velayati made the remarks in Moscow Friday amid reports that Iran's role in Syria will be a key item at a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump in Helsinki on Monday.
Velayati said Iran and Russia's presence in Syria will continue to protect the country against terrorist groups and America's aggression. They "will immediately leave if Iraqi and Syrian governments want it, not because of Israel and America's pressure," he added.
Velayati also touched on the objectives of the Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to Moscow where he "repeated his delusional and threadbare accusations against Iran," state news agency IRNA reported.
"The process of developing relations between Iran and Russia is not one-sided and therefore, the irrelevant, meaningless and interventionist claims made by Netanyahu do not affect Iran-Russia relations," he said.
Velayati, the Leader's adviser on international affairs, traveled to Moscow on Wednesday to convey a message from Ayatollah Khamenei and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's to President Putin.
In this vein, Tasnim News Agency quotes a former US army psychological warfare officer and counter-terrorism analyst as saying that strategic cooperation between Tehran and Moscow means an end to invasion of countries near Iran and Russia by terrorist mercenaries backed by the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
“Strategic cooperation between Iran and Russia means stopping all US-Saudi-Israeli terrorist mercenaries from being able to continue invading countries nearby Russia and Iran…,” Scott Bennett, from San Francisco, told Tasnim on Friday.
“The Iranian leadership is very wise to meet with Russian leaders and impress upon them the mutual interdependence of destinies, which Iran and Russia share. In other words, what the Iranian leadership is saying is very simple and easy to understand, which is what the US does to Iran, they will also do to Russia—and China for that matter—unless these nations stand together against such international tyranny, terrorism, and hypocrisy,” Bennett said.
In the same vein, Iran's former Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi believes that Velayati's visit to Moscow was "very important," taking place in a "sensitive juncture."
"Mr. Putin seated Dr. Velayati across from himself at the table, making the meeting be seen a serious negotiation and taking any sense of formality out of it. The sort of sitting arrangement represented the atmosphere that exists in the relationship," he said.
The Kremlin said in a statement that Putin and Velayati exchanged views on bilateral Tehran-Moscow relations and the developments in the Middle East, including the Syria crisis.
