“Of course, those cannot remain,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during a speech at an event commemorating the fifth anniversary of the killing of Iran’s commander Qasem Soleimani by the US. He did not elaborate.
“Syria belongs to the Syrian people. Those who invade the land of the Syrian people will one day, be forced to retreat in the face of the power of the brave Syrian youth. This will undoubtedly happen,” added Khamenei.
He was apparently referring to the fall of Tehran’s ally Bashar al-Assad and the takeover of the country by rebels who have fought both regimes for years. He indirectly described Syria’s ousted president as a factor of stability.
If the “stability factors” are to be removed the chaos and violation by the foreign actors will take place, he noted.
Assad’s regime was removed from power by a coalition of rebel forces spearheaded by the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on December 8.
Unlike Assad, the new Syrian authority has announced that it does not see Israel, Iran’s arch-enemy, as a foe and seeks good relations with regional and Western countries.
“It will be like Syria when they remove the stability factors and authority factors. it will be chaos, the seizure of territory, the Syrian territory by foreigners, America on one side, the Zionist regime on the one side, and some other aggressor countries entering from the other side,” Khamenei told the crowd, without mentioning the names of “other aggressor countries.”
Khamenei earlier in December accused a “neighboring country” of playing a role in the ousting of top ally Assad, saying the events in Syria came from a US-Israeli plot.
Syria's new foreign minister warned in December that Tehran should avoid spreading “chaos” in Syria and respect the will of Syrians.
Barbara Leaf, US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, said in December that “Iran will have no role” in Syria after meeting the new Syrian authorities in Damascus.
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