Iran vows support to Syrian leadership

Beirut, March 31 (IANS) Iran "would not spare any effort to" support the Syrian leadership, its Iranian deputy foreign minister said on a visit here Saturday.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran would not spare any effort to embrace the Syrian Arab Republic and support its leadership, regime and people in the direction that would preserve its resistance role against aggression and the Zionist state," Hussein Amir Abdollahian, Iranian deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, said after a meeting with Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour on bilateral and regional issues, reported Xinhua.

"The only solution to the Syrian crisis is the political process and nothing else," Abdollahian said, noting that Iran had made efforts "to help Mr. Kofi Annan succeed in his Syrian mission. "

Annan, a former UN secretary general, was delegated last month as the joint special envoy of the United Nations and Arab League to mediate a solution to the Syrian crisis.

Abdollahian said Iran had seen "the political reforms announced by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and that he is working on implementing (them) ... and we are seeking that the Syrian people should not be harmed in anyway, and to prevent by all means any foreign intervention."

Abdollahian met Friday Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and handed him a letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirming "Iran's permanent support for Lebanon in various fields and at all levels," according to a report by the state-run National News Agency.