TEHRAN (AFP) — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that he remains confident Iran's close ally Syria will keep up the struggle against Israel despite its announcement of renewed peace negotiations.
"I am sure that the Syrian leadership will manage the situation with wisdom and will not abandon the front line until the complete removal of the Zionist threats," Ahmadinejad told visiting Syrian Defence Minister Hassan Turkmani.
"So far the cooperation between Iran and Syria in different areas has been beneficial for both sides and our defence ties should be expanded as far as possible," the official IRNA news agency quoted the president as saying.
Turkmani's visit is the first to Iran by a Syrian official since Syria and Israel announced last Wednesday that they had resumed indirect peace negotiations through Turkish mediators, ending an eight-year freeze.
Turkmani held talks on Sunday with his Iranian counterpart Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, during which the Iranian side underlined the importance of "collective security".
Ahmadinejad stressed that Iran would continue its longstanding policy of supporting "the oppressed Palestinian people."
"Supporting the Palestinian people means supporting regional security, as the Palestinians are in the front line of the Zionists' aggression," he said.
Iran does not recognise Israel and has been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Ahmadinejad has drawn international condemnation by calling for the Jewish state to be wiped from the map.
On Saturday, Syria rejected any preconditions to the new peace negotiations with Israel involving either breaking its three-decade alliance with Iran or ending its support for Lebanese and Palestinian militant groups.
Israeli officials have in the past conditioned any peace deal with Syria on its agreement to end both.
Iranian analysts saw in Turkmani's visit proof that the three-decade-old alliance between Tehran and Damascus remained intact despite the renewed peace negotiations.
It "re-emphasises that Iran-Syria ties have not faded or weakened despite the indirect Israeli-Syrian talks," said Mosayeb Naiemi, chief editor of Iran's Arabic-language government newspaper, Al-Vefagh.
Naiemi recalled the military cooperation agreement the two governments had signed in 2006 and insisted that the alliance was "not going to be affected by some seasonal winds."
Independent analyst Mohammad Saleh Sedghian, a specialist in Iran-Arab relations, said he believed most Iranian officials accepted Syria's decision to resume peace negotiations with Israel.
"I believe that Iran does not object to these talks if they can bring back the Golan Heights," he said.
"But some circles in the Iranian system are against any kind of approach to the Israelis, since they think that it could lead to ties with Israel like Egypt's or Jordan's."
Sedghian said he expected the Syrian-Iranian alliance to continue because of the two countries' enduring common interests.
"Iran-Syria ties are based on a common approach to regional issues. The record of relations over the past 30 years has told us that it has served the interest of both nations and, as long as the shared interest endures, it will will continue."
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