Hezbollah to Remain in Syria until Further Notice: Nasrallah
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The secretary general of Hezbollah said the Lebanese resistance movement will stay in Syria for the fight against terrorism as long as Damascus needs it.
“No one can force us out of Syria... We will stay until further notice,” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech on Wednesday night, adding, “Our presence there is tied to necessity and to the consent of the Syrian leadership.”
“We will remain there even after the Idlib accord,” Nasrallah said, referring to a Russia-Turkey deal to create a buffer zone in Syria’s Idlib province, the last major terrorist bastion in the Arab country.
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyib Erdogan announced after their talks in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that they had agreed to create a demilitarized zone of a depth of 15-20 kilometers in Idlib along the contact line between the armed opposition and government troops by October 15.
“Naturally, the calm of the front lines and the decline in threats will have an impact on the numbers present,” the Hezbollah cheif said.
“With the Idlib accord, if everything is done correctly, we can suppose that Syria will head towards a great calm, and in concrete terms there will no longer be front lines,” he said
Nasrallah also commended the outcome of a summit on Idlib hosted by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and attended by his Turkish and Russian counterparts earlier this month in Tehran.
Iran, along with Russia and Hezbollah, has been effectively helping the Syrian government in its fight against terrorists.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Nasrallah accused the US of prolonging the life of Daesh terrorists in Syria in order to beef up US military presence in the Middle East.
He stressed that the US has created the Takfiri terrorist group and provided it with every support it needs.
“The US support has prolonged Daesh’s presence in some areas in northeastern Syria,” the Hezbollah leader stated.
He also censured Washington for interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.
The Hezbollah leader condemned the US' decision to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of Israel, adding that the US has proved it is not a friend of the Palestinian people by preventing them from having a state.
In May, the US moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds, in a largely solitary but consequential move that further complicated Palestinian aspirations for statehood.
Last week, the Trump White House also announced the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington. Palestinian officials said on Sunday that Washington had also revoked the visas of Palestinian envoy Husam Zomlot and his family.
In his speech, Nasrallah also said Washington is helping the Saudi-led coalition in its war on Yemen, and warned all regional actors about the consequences of cooperating with the US in its plots against the region.