Iran

Two fighters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were killed in a mine explosion in al-Mayadin, eastern Syria. The advisor on foreign affairs to the supreme leader of Iran met with the incoming Syrian ambassador to Tehran and passed on the wishes of speedy recovery from the supreme leader of Iran to the Syrian president, who recently contracted COVID-19. In an extraordinary statement, a former Iranian Majlis member stated that it can not be ruled out that Syria will change its approach toward Iran is the future, and hence Iran must not place all its eggs in President Assad’s basket. The Iranian ambassador to Baghdad met with the Iraqi minister of finance and discussed the issue of releasing Iranian funds frozen in Iraqi banks due to Western sanctions. Esmail Qa’ani, the Commander of the IRGC’s Qods Force, stated in a commemoration ceremony in the city of Mashhad that Israel is forced to wall itself off to protect itself, and warned “the Zionists” that they should know that this wall too will be destroyed. Read more...

The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the American strike against targets of the Iraqi pro-Iranian militias on the Syrian side of the Iraqi-Syrian border, on the night of February 25-26. In late February, the Spokesman of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Saeed Khatibzadeh, visited Damascus. A conference to examine opportunities to expand the commercial cooperation between Iran and Syria was held in Tehran. The Iraqi minister of foreign affairs arrived for a second visit in less than a month in Tehran. Tensions between Iran and Turkey after the Iranian ambassador to Iraq gave an interview to a Kurdish TV channel, during which the ambassador lambasted Turkey’s intervention in northern Iraq. Read more...

The Senior Adviser to the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ali-Asghan Khaji, met with the Syrian president and discussed with him developments in the country and the ongoing negotiations concerning the settlement of the war. The American Arabic TV channel al-Hurra reported, based on foreign intelligence sources, about the smuggling of heavy weaponry by the Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) across the Syria-Iraq border. The Head of the Iranian Judiciary, Ibrahim Raisi, arrived for a visit in Iraq, lasting a number of days, during which the two countries signed three memoranda of understanding concerning cooperation in the legal sphere, prisoner exchanges and combatting corruption. The spokesman of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied any Iranian involvement in the rocket attack on the Erbil International Airport and its environs, which killed a contractor of the U.S. armed forces. Read more...

Iranian and Syrian cargo planes continue to make frequent flights between Damascus and Tehran. In early February, the Iraqi minister of foreign affairs arrived for a visit in Tehran during which he met with senior Iranian officials, chief among them the president, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and the Iranian minister of foreign affairs. In late January, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, Jeanine Antoinette Plasschaert, visited Tehran and met with senior Iranian officials, including the senior adviser on international affairs to the supreme leader of Iran, and the special adviser to the speaker of the Majlis. Read more...