Iran warns that a US plan to deploy more troops to Syria will worsen the crisis as it pledges to continue support for the Syrian government.
“We have announced from the start of the Syria crisis that any foreign intervention in Syria without coordination with its government will further escalate the crisis,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
President Barack Obama will announce plans on Monday to send up to 250 more military personnel to the war-torn country, US administration officials have said.
This would bring to 300 the total number of American troops in Syria. The White House claims its ground troops will help in the fight against Daesh terrorists.
“Any dispatch of military forces must be carried out in coordination with the Syrian government,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi-Ansari told reporters in Tehran during a weekly news briefing.
US plans to send more troops to Syria come in the midst of a fragile ceasefire which came close to collapse last week after foreign-backed militants pulled out of the negotiations held in Geneva.
A senior official said Iran would continue to support the Syrian government if the truce broke down.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, said “certain countries dependent on the Western colonialism are not committed to observing the ceasefire.”
They have an inclination to “disregard the ceasefire as much as they can and use force,” with “the big powers supporting this violation of the norms and the breach,” he told Iran’s ISNA news agency.
“I believe the Syrian people must remain prepared and they are prepared in fact. They must take steps for peace in the first place and if their country’s peace came under threat, they must continue resistance,” Velayati added.