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“We had announced at the very beginning that we support the righteous demands of the entire nations, including the Syrians,” Roknabadi said on Monday. He said that the Syrians are after true reforms, but they support President Bashar al-Assad’s government, reiterating, “It is quite natural that Iran supports the Syrians’ demand in this respect and furthermore, we believe the Syrian crisis must be solved inside Syria and no one is allowed to interfere in that country’s affairs.” In response to a question on Iran’s continual support for Assad’s regime, Roknabadi to the Lebanese daily al-Safir, “We would remain by the side of the Syrian people and the Syrian government, because we are sure that the majority of the people in that country favor implementation of reforms by Bashar Assad himself.”He referred to the bilateral meetings between the Iranian and Turkish officials and their viewpoints on Syria, reiterating, “In our meetings with Turkish officials we emphasized that there are realities regarding Syria which cannot be ignored, including the majority of Syrians’ support for their political regime.” Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon said that some people’s prediction on Syria is one thing and the sheer reality there is something else, because anyone who travels to Syria and visits the different cities there realizes that the situation is not the way that some media report with so much hue and cries.” Iran had earlier this month condemned foreign interference in Syria’s internal affairs, and praised the reforms President Assad has pledged to undertake as “problem-solving”. “We are fundamentally against interfering in the affairs of other countries. We think it does not solve the problems but will only make them more complicated,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said. “The good reforms which have been announced by Syrian officials are pushing the ambience towards dialogue and solving the problems, though some countries do not like this,” Mehman-Parast said. Assad has announced the end to the state of emergency, granted citizenship to many Syrian Kurds and promised parliamentary elections later this year. On Sunday he issued the latest of thousands of amnesties for those detained since the uprising began.
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