Russia reiterates backing for Syria's Al Assad
Iran to keep ‘military advisers’ in Syria ‘in accordance with wishes of its government’
MOSCOW/Tehran: The Kremlin said on Monday that it continued to support Syrian President Bashar Al Assad after militant rebels last week wrested swathes of territory from government control.
Moscow said so after Al Assad spoke of the “importance” of his allies in facing a rebel offensive that saw the Syrian government lose control of Aleppo.
“We of course continue to support Bashar Al Assad and we continue contacts at the appropriate levels, we are analysing the situation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, adding that Russia would draw up a “position on what is necessary to stabilise the situation”.
According to monitors, Syrian and Russian aircraft staged deadly strikes in support of government forces on Sunday.
Russia intervened in the Syrian Civil War in 2015, stepping into the conflict on the side of Al Assad’s regime on his request.
In 2016, the Russian airforce helped the Syrian army recapture rebel-held areas of Aleppo.
Al Assad is one of the few leaders who has openly supported Moscow’s offensive against Ukraine.
Iran advisers
Iran, meanwhile, said on Monday that it plans to keep military advisers in Syria after its ally’s second city Aleppo was overrun by rebels in a surprise offensive.
The Islamic republic, which has backed Al Assad since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, says it only deploys military advisers in the country at the invitation of Damascus.
“We entered Syria many years ago at the official invitation of the Syrian government, when the Syrian people faced the threat of terrorism,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaeil.
“Our military advisers were present in Syria, and they are still present” and would remain in the country “in accordance with the wishes” of its government, he told a news conference in Tehran.
Baqaeil did not specify whether or not Iran would be increasing its forces in Syria in the wake of the rebel offensive.
His remarks come a day after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Al Assad in Damascus to show support for the Syrian president.
Aleppo fell to an Islamist-dominated rebel alliance over the course of the past week, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.