Senior Iranian official reiterates political solution to Syrian crisis

A senior Iranian official underlined that holding direct talks between the Damascus government and the opposition forces would be the only solution to the Syrian crisis. “The Syrian people will certainly not allow their evil-minded enemies to decide for them,” Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and former foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday. He underlined that the Syrians should decide about their own fate. Salehi pointed to the US withdrawal from attacking Syria, and said, “Washington had no choice other than diplomacy because it seems to be as the best logical solution to the crisis in the Muslims country.” On Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov reached an agreement on a framework for Syria to verify that it is eliminating all its chemical weapons. On September 9, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem said Damascus welcomed a proposal made by Russia to put its chemical weapons stockpile under international control. The Russia’s plan was aimed at averting a US military strike in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack last month in the suburbs of Damascus which the White House blames on the Syrian government. The US, Israel and France have adopted the rhetoric of war against Syria over allegations that the Syrian government was behind a recent chemical attack near Damascus. The call for military strike intensified after the militants operating inside Syria and the foreign-backed Syrian opposition claimed on August 21 that hundreds had been killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds in the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar. The Syrian government has strongly denied the claim, accusing the militants of the attack.