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Ahmadinejad and Arab League ask Assad to stop the crisis
The president of Iran, Syria's main ally, has intervened three times in recent days supporting the futility of military intervention. The Arab League is preparing to present its proposal. Support for Assad from Medvedev and Beshara Rai.
Damascus (AsiaNews) - A few weeks ago, a European religious present in Syria for many years said that only Iran could convince the regime in Damascus to change direction and strategy. The idea could have seemed very unrealistic.
Yet, in recent days, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made an urgent warning to his friend and colleague that the Syrian repression must end, and the government must speak with the opposition. A warning that could convince the regime in Damascus to really listen to what is proposed, this Saturday, when the Arab League presents its’ initiative to end the crisis.
Obviously, Syrian media (SANA news agency, television and newspapers), all controlled by the government, have totally ignored the repeated statements of the Iranian president. For years (and not only from March 15), those media have confused information with propaganda. They have ignored, for example, the telephone conversation of President Bashar al-Assad with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, on August 17 last, in which the Syrian president said that he had "concluded" the military operations. They have ignored the appeal made by Pope Benedict XVI on August 7. They have ignored the message to Syrian Muslims from the Catholic Greek-Melkite Patriarch, Gregorios III, in which he said that we must "listen to the slogans of the young" who are protesting in the streets of cities and villages of the country.
Instead space has been given, even today, to the statements of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the Lebanese Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai. For Medvedev, who also spoke of "inappropriate force" by the authorities, between those who are opposed to Assad there are "terrorists" and Syria is as a “friend” of Russia. The Patriarch of Lebanon, however, has asked the international community to give the Syrian president more time to pursue reforms and dialogue with the opposition. "The president Bashar Assad - he adds - is an open-minded person, who has studied in Europe, but can not preform miracles."
President Ahmadinejad spoke of the situation in Syria, on three occasions during recent days. He spoke successively on the pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian Lebanese television station Al-Manar, aligned with the Hezbollah Party, and Portuguese television and then on the Al-Arabiya television channel, which is one of those which supports the Syrian opposition. He said that "a military solution will not solve anything, it is not the right solution", he added that Damascus "should be open to dialogue between the government and its opponents", because "freedom, justice and respect for others are the rights of all nations, and problems must be dealt with through dialogue".
It seems that the Iranian regime, allied to Damascus, which since March has helped with money and technology, is now worried that if it continues the Syrian crisis, as is already the case in the city of Homs, in the centre of the country, could become a real civil war, with serious consequences for the entire Middle East, and especially for Iran. (JPG).