Demands for Hezbollah Withdrawal from Syria Unacceptable: Russian Diplomat
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A Russian diplomat rejected some US officials’ demands for the Lebanese Hezbollah Resistance Movement’s withdrawal from Syria as “unacceptable”.
“Hezbollah's fight against radical terrorism (is) consonant with Russia's Mideast policy,” the Interfax news agency quoted the anonymous Russian diplomat as saying on Friday.
“Demands that Hezbollah leave Syria before eradication of terrorism (is) unacceptable,” the diplomat noted.
The remarks came after Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Donald Trump plan to discuss Syrian crisis and Iran’s presence in the Arab country in a summit in Finland’s Helsinki on Monday.
The US and the Zionist regime of Israel want Iran and Hezbollah to pull out of Syria, while Russia has warned it would be unrealistic to expect Iran to fully withdraw from the country.
Syria has been gripped by civil war since March 2011 with various terrorist groups, including Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL), currently fighting against the central government.
In the meantime, Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah have remained close allies of Syria and support its legitimate government in the face of foreign-backed militancy.