Zarif Urges 'Foreign Elements' Withdrawal from Syria, Says Hizbullah Took 'Own' Decision to Interfere
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif revealed on Friday that Hizbullah “took its own decision” to get involved in the Syrian war, urging all “foreign elements” to withdraw from the neighboring country.
"Iran did not send anyone to Syria and Hizbullah took its own decision to fight there,” Zarif said at a seminar held on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland's Davos, noting that the party has “exerted lots of efforts to safeguard stability” in Lebanon.
"And we urge all foreign elements to withdraw from Syria,” he added.
Iran was finally not invited to join the opening of a peace conference in Switzerland, because it has failed to sign up to a 2012 accord which sets out that President Bashar Assad must give way to a transitional government to end the fighting.
Zarif continued: "We call for stop funneling funds and money and arms into Syria and to allow the Syrian people to decide their destiny... hopefully in Geneva, although we were not invited. But we are hoping that Geneva can produce results, because we are in the region, we will be affected by any disaster coming out of the region."
On whether Assad would have survived against a determined uprising without Tehran's help, Zarif assured that "of course he would."
"Nobody would survive unless they have domestic legitimacy," he explained.
Caretaker FM Adnan Mansour on Wednesday told the conferees during the Geneva II summit that Hizbullah's interference in Syria is not the problem, pointing out that the region's upheaval is cause by the presence of terrorist ideologies
“Those claiming that what is happening in Syria is a result of Hizbullah's involvement in the war want to divert attention from the fact that there are foreign terrorist groups in the region,” Mansour said during his participation at the Syria peace talks.
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