Russia, Syria and Iran Condemn U.S. Intention To Aid Syrian Rebels

March 3, 2013 • 9:24AM

Secretary of State John Kerry's announcement, on Feb. 28, that the U.S. would be supplying armed Syrian rebel groups with direct "nonlethal" aid drew denunciations from Moscow and Tehran. The Russian Foreign Ministry charged that the U.S. plan to aid the Syrian opposition promotes extremists who have no interest in peace talks and are determined to seize power through force. "The decisions taken in Rome and also the statements that were voiced there both in spirit and literally encourage the extremists to take power by force regardless of would-be inevitable suffering of ordinary Syrians," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich in a statement posted on the ministry's website on March 1, reports the Los Angeles Times. "In our view, the urgent task of today is to immediately halt the bloodshed and violence and turn to a political dialogue."

Today both Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem and his Iranian host Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi condemned the U.S. plan from Tehran where they were meeting. "I do not understand how the United States can give support to groups that kill the Syrian people," al-Muallem said in a joint press conference with Salehi. "This is nothing but a double standard policy.... One who seeks a political solution does not punish the Syrian people."

"If you really feel sorry about the ongoing situation in Syria you should force the opposition to sit at the negotiating table with the Syrian government and put an end to the bloodshed," added Salehi. "Why do you encourage the opposition to continue these acts of violence?"

Just as al-Muallem and Salehi were making their remarks in Tehran, the Syrian army gained what is being described in wire reports as a "strategic victory," by retaking the highway that runs from Hama to the airport in Aleppo. Apparently, a contingent of Syrian troops had gotten trapped at the airport by armed opposition groups trying to take it, and the army reopened the road from the outside and securing towns along the way, re-establishing it as a supply route. Even the opposition admitted to the significance of this victory by the Syrian army. "Securing these villages, assuming the regime can hang on to them, has the potential to turn around the direction of the conflict in Aleppo," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the director of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.