Iran backs Syria over US pressure
Foreign Desk Report

DAMASCUS—Iran backed Syria on Monday in its rift with the United Nations over cooperation with an inquiry into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister and called for confronting U.S. “dubious moves” in the Middle East.
“We declare our support for uncovering the truth vis-a-vis the assassination of Mr. Rafik al-Hariri and I have seen that the officials in Syria support this issue in a good way,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said after talks with President Bashar al Assad in Damascus. “We pin our hope that the investigation team continues its work on a pure legal foundation and does not work on politicizing the investigation.”
U.S. pressure on Syria peaked in recent weeks to cooperate with a UN investigation into the February 14 killing of Hariri in a Beirut bomb blast. The head of the UN team, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, complained in October that Damascus was not cooperating with his investigation that linked some Syrian officials to the killing.
Assad said in a defiant speech last week Syria would cooperate with the investigation but would not sanction any move that would harm its security or stability. Syria, which denies any role in the murder of Hariri, has said that Mehlis’s investigation was politicized and builds its conclusions on testimony of its Lebanese foes.
A Security Council resolution last month threatened “further action” against Damascus if it did not cooperate fully with Mehlis before a December 15 deadline. A Syrian official said on Sunday Mehlis had rejected moving the venue from Lebanon for the questioning of six Syrian security officials that a Lebanese political source said include Assad’s brother-in-law Major General Assef Shawkat.
Iran is also facing stiff U.S. pressure over its nuclear program. Mottaki, who delivered a message to Assad from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said his talks tackled “the dubious moves that America is undertaking in the region. America seeks...domination goals in the region.”
Mottaki, speaking to reporters through a translator, did not elaborate on the nature of the U.S. moves, but said they sought to serve the interests of arch-foe Israel.
Both Syria and Iran accuse the United States of seeking to force regional backing for its policies that aim at furthering Israeli interests at the expense of Arabs and Muslims. Upon his arrival in Damascus for a one-day visit, Mottaki called for “vigilance and cooperation among regional countries will stop enemies from achieving their evil objectives,” the official Iranian news agency reported.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sprang to the defence of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, bluntly telling the hardliner’s increasingly vocal domestic critics to back off. “The government must be supported,” Khamenei told a gathering of Muslim prayer leaders on Monday. “I hear unjust criticism of the government and the president,” said Khamenei in a declaration that is unprecedented given that Ahmadinejad has only been in office for around 100 days.