TEHRAN: Iran said on Saturday that it expects Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to remain on his incumbent position untill next polls slated to be held next year.
“The official position of Iran is that… Assad will remain legitimate president until the next… election” in 2014, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in a press conference on Saturday with his Syrian counterpart, Walid al-Muallem.
Muallem has arrived in Tehran on Saturday with an aim to negotiate to bring the conflict that has gripped Syria for nearly two year to an end.
“We believe that the crisis has no military solution and only a Syrian political one,” said the Iranian minister. “Iran firstly wants stop to the bloodshed but the Syrian government has no choice but to fight against the terrorists and we cannot ask the Syrian government not to do so and leave them alone,” he added.
Meanwhile, commenting on the US Secretary of State John Kerry’s  Thursday announcement that the the US would give aid worth $60 million, including food rations and medical supplies, to Syrian opposition and direct non-lethal aid to some of its military forces, Muallen said;
“When the US (says it has) allocated $60 million to the opposition and this opposition is killing people, I don’t understand this initiative… are there any weapons that do not kill people? Who are you kidding?” Muallem asked.
