Iran’s supreme leader dismissed Sunday the chances of foreign countries bartering a deal over Syria´s future, suggesting they should focus on securing a halt to fighting that allows fresh elections.
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Leader’s address focused on expounding “foreign policy principles well-documented in the Constitution and the requirements emanating from these principles, ‘ and Iran’s ‘principled and solid” solutions to important issues in the region notably in Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain.
The Leader then called on the Iranian foreign ministry officials, ambassadors and diplomats to stick to the tenets of the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy “firmly, mightily and gloriously”, so that foreigners and their followers inside the country would not pin hopes on a shift in Iran’s foreign policy.
Khamenei also took aim at wider USA policy in the Middle East.
“The Americans are trying to impose their own interests, not resolve issues, 60 or 70 percent through negotiations and the rest through illegal actions. Then what would negotiations mean?”
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif attended the meeting after returning from inconclusive talks with world powers in Vienna on Friday aimed at finding a solution to the war, the first time Iran had participated in such talks.
While many consider the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) a major breakthrough in the improvement of ties between Iran and the West, the Leader has already made it clear that Tehran’s policy toward the United States will remain unchanged regardless of the ultimate fate of the JCPOA.
The Leader also said the partitioning of Iraq into Shia Arab, Sunni Arab and Kurdish regions is completely against its national interests and is an “impractical, meaningless and unacceptable” plan.
“But on Syria they are not prepared to stop supporting the armed opposition upon a request by the legal president (Assad) of this country”.
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“There’s no point in other countries getting together and deciding about a system of government and the head of that state”, he said Sunday.
