Ahmadinejad to Assad: We Are on Same Front

Ahmadinejad to Assad: We Are on Same Front

19/08/2009 Syrian President Bashar Assad arrived in Tehran on Wednesday for a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was expected to present his new government to the Iranian parliament.

Ahmadinejad said during the meeting that the West was attempting to stop the "resistance" in the Middle East, but was in for a great defeat.

Official news agency IRNA reported that Assad was welcomed at the Tehran airport by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Assad was accompanied by Syrian President Walid Moallem. He was then greeted in an official ceremony by Ahmadinejad, at the president's residence in Tehran.

Assad is the second leader to visit the Iranian president since his inauguration ceremony, after Oman's sultan. His visit is expected to last one day.

Iranian media reported that Assad had come to Iran to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his reelection. "With the help of God, the resistance of the region's people will prevail and they will suffer a great defeat," the Iranian president said during his meeting with his Syrian counterpart. "Iran and Syria are on the same front, and any political event is an opportunity which must be used at the best way possible while helping one another," he added.

Assad condemned the "foreign intervention" in Iran's internal affairs, saying that the main reason for this was the West's fear of Syria and Iran's success in the coming years. "I believe the Iranian people's reelection is another emphasis on the fact that Iran and Syria must continue the regional policy as in the past," the Syrian president said.

He added, "Today I came here to give you and the Iranian people warm greetings. I think that what happened in Iran is an important thing and a big lesson to the foreigners, and therefore they are not very satisfied."

Assad expressed his confidence that from now on, the international community would welcome Iran and Syria more than it did in the past.

Assad is expected to include an appeal to free a French academic accused of plotting to overthrow the Islamic regime.

Parliament, meanwhile, awaiting the formal list of the president's Cabinet nominees, put out its own list of expected nominees based on the president's past statements. The list included three women proposed for the education, health and welfare ministries. If confirmed, they would be Iran's first female government ministers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

But much of the international attention Wednesday focused on whether Assad lobbies for the release of Clotilde Reiss, a French academic on trial with more than 100 politicians, journalists and activists accused of trying to engineer a "velvet revolution" to overthrow the Islamic leadership. Reiss was released last week on bail, but judicial authorities have barred her from leaving the country.