Terrorists Seeking to Offer Syria to Israel as an 'Easy Morsel': Syrian Minister
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Syrian Interior Minister Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar underlined that terrorist groups are seeking to debilitate and destroy the Arab country and hand it over to the Israeli regime.
"(Terrorist groups) in Syria go by various names but all of them have the same goal and method", visiting Shaar said Tuesday in a meeting with Director of the Strategic Research Center of Iran's Expediency Council Ali Akbar Velayati in Tehran.
The terrorist groups operating in Syria aim to destroy the country and the assets of the nation and hand it to Israel as an "easy morsel", he added.
Pointing to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on security cooperation signed earlier on Monday between Iran and Syria, Shaar said the campaign against terrorism is the most important issue in the agreement.
Velayati, for his part, described Tehran-Damascus ties as "brotherly" and said the two countries are determined to continue their deep-rooted relations in all areas.
Syria has been gripped by civil war since March 2011 with Takfiri terrorists from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) currently controlling parts of it, mostly in the east.
According to the United Nations, more than 220,000 people have been killed and one million wounded during the conflict.
In the meantime, Iran has remained a close ally of Syria and supports its legitimate government in the face of foreign-backed militancy.
Tehran insists that the Syrian nation is the only side that has the right to shape the future of its own country, rejecting foreign intervention with the use of force.
Earlier on June 2, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani hailed the resistance of the Syrian government and people against foreign-backed terrorist groups in the Arab country, saying that Tehran is determined to side with Damascus to the end of the crisis.