Iran Ramps Up Pressure on Damascus for Debt Recovery via Investments

FILED - 16 February 2023, Syria, Damascus: A photo released by the official Syrian Arab news agency (SANA) on 16 February shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad delivering a televised speech. Photo: -/SANA/dpa
FILED - 16 February 2023, Syria, Damascus: A photo released by the official Syrian Arab news agency (SANA) on 16 February shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad delivering a televised speech. Photo: -/SANA/dpa
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Iran Ramps Up Pressure on Damascus for Debt Recovery via Investments

FILED - 16 February 2023, Syria, Damascus: A photo released by the official Syrian Arab news agency (SANA) on 16 February shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad delivering a televised speech. Photo: -/SANA/dpa
FILED - 16 February 2023, Syria, Damascus: A photo released by the official Syrian Arab news agency (SANA) on 16 February shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad delivering a televised speech. Photo: -/SANA/dpa

Iran is pushing Syria to act on strategic investments from agreements between them, aiming to repay Syria’s $50 billion debt.

Tehran is speeding up the process, which Damascus had hesitated on, seeing itself as crucial for Syria’s survival amid economic collapse.

Sources in Damascus confirm Iran’s long-standing pressure to implement these agreements, especially after President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit last May and the signing of a cooperation memorandum.

The focus is on getting these agreements into action.

Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that Syria sees these agreements as unfair, giving Iran benefits while harming Syrian interests.

Syria feels deprived of financial support to bolster its economy because the main goal seems to be Iran reclaiming its debt.

As a result, Damascus hesitates to implement the agreements, hoping to use its economy as leverage to attract investment from Arab and Western nations.

Last August, a classified government document from the Iranian presidency was leaked to the media, revealing Iran spent $50 billion on the Syrian war over 10 years.

Iran considers this sum as "debts" it intends to reclaim through investments, including the transfer of phosphate, oil, and other resources to the Iranian government.

Iran plans to invest $947 million in eight projects to recoup about $18 billion over 50 years.

An economist in Damascus, who requested anonymity, explained that due to war damage, production in government-held areas is minimal, and Syria heavily relies on imports, especially with Russia occupied in Ukraine.

As a result, Syria is dependent on Iran, which controls the supply of oil, gas, and food, becoming Syria’s main lifeline.

As signs of progress in Damascus-Tehran agreements emerge, Syria's Minister of Communications and Technology, Iyad al-Khatib, announced that the trial call for the new cellular operator, “Wafa Telecom,” will happen in September, followed by its commercial launch.

Workers installing communication towers confirmed that many are set up to serve “Wafa Telecom,” reportedly backed by seven local Syrian companies. However, investigations found ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

“Most areas in Damascus now have these towers,” an installation worker, speaking under conditions of anonymity, told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Another source in Damascus mentioned speeding up the implementation of various agreements, including establishing a joint bank and enhancing trade deals.

To speed up these agreements, Iran appointed Hossein Akbari as its special ambassador to Damascus in April 2023. He’s been meeting with Syrian officials and engaging with state institutions and trade chambers, focusing on the economic aspects.

Local media reported that he met with three Syrian ministers separately on March 21. They discussed starting various joint industrial projects between the two countries.

Among the planned Iranian-Syrian projects is an agreement regarding a Syrian phosphate mine with a capacity of 1.05 billion tons. Iran is set to receive part of its claims from this mine over 50 years, investing $125 million within 3 years.

According to a leaked Iranian document, this contract has been active since 2018, with 2.05 million tons of phosphate extracted from the mine until February 2022.

Another contract involves the Homs “Field 21” oil field in central Syria, holding reserves of 100 million barrels. The 30-year contract execution began in 2020, with Iran investing $300 million to complete it within 5 years, aiming to settle Syria's $3.4 billion debt from this field.

There’s also a contract for “Field 12” in Deir Ezzor, eastern Syria, spanning 30 years. With a $300 million investment over 5 years, Iran expects to earn $3 billion from it.

Additionally, Iran will establish and operate a mobile phone station in Syria, investing $222 million over three years, expecting an income of $1.5 billion. They’ll also receive a portion of the income from the Latakia port, with payments spread over 20 years.

Furthermore, there are contracts for investing in 5,000 hectares of agricultural land in Syria, covering $25 million of Syria’s debt to Iran over 25 years.

Moreover, a contract will establish a factory for producing powdered infant milk near the “Zahid” cattle facility in Tartus. Through this, $7 million of Syria’s debt to Iran is expected to be repaid over 25 years.



Israel’s Military Admits to Shooting at Ambulances in Gaza

 Palestinians buy clothes in a shop next to a destroyed apartment building in preparation for Eid al-Fitr celebrations at Al-Rimal neighborhood in the center of Gaza City Friday March 28, 2025.(AP)
Palestinians buy clothes in a shop next to a destroyed apartment building in preparation for Eid al-Fitr celebrations at Al-Rimal neighborhood in the center of Gaza City Friday March 28, 2025.(AP)
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Israel’s Military Admits to Shooting at Ambulances in Gaza

 Palestinians buy clothes in a shop next to a destroyed apartment building in preparation for Eid al-Fitr celebrations at Al-Rimal neighborhood in the center of Gaza City Friday March 28, 2025.(AP)
Palestinians buy clothes in a shop next to a destroyed apartment building in preparation for Eid al-Fitr celebrations at Al-Rimal neighborhood in the center of Gaza City Friday March 28, 2025.(AP)

Israel’s military admitted Saturday it had fired on ambulances in the Gaza Strip after identifying them as “suspicious vehicles,” with Hamas condemning it as a “war crime” that killed at least one person.

The incident took place last Sunday in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood in the southern city of Rafah, close to the Egyptian border.

Israeli troops launched an offensive there on March 20, two days after the army resumed aerial bombardments of Gaza following an almost two-month-long truce.

Israeli troops had “opened fire toward Hamas vehicles and eliminated several Hamas terrorists,” the military said in a statement to AFP.

“A few minutes afterward, additional vehicles advanced suspiciously toward the troops... The troops responded by firing toward the suspicious vehicles, eliminating a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists.”

The military did not say if there was fire coming from the vehicles.

It added that “after an initial inquiry, it was determined that some of the suspicious vehicles... were ambulances and fire trucks,” and condemned “the repeated use” by “terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip of ambulances for terrorist purposes.”

The day after the incident, Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said in a statement that it had not heard from a team of six rescuers from Tal al-Sultan who had been urgently dispatched to respond to deaths and injuries.

On Friday, it reported finding the body of the team leader and the rescue vehicles—an ambulance and a firefighting vehicle—and said a vehicle from the Palestine Red Crescent Society was also “reduced to a pile of scrap metal.”

Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, accused Israel of carrying out “a deliberate and brutal massacre against Civil Defense and Palestinian Red Crescent teams in the city of Rafah.”

“The targeted killing of rescue workers—who are protected under international humanitarian law—constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime,” he said.

Tom Fletcher, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that since March 18, “Israeli airstrikes in densely populated areas have killed hundreds of children and other civilians.”

“Patients killed in their hospital beds. Ambulances shot at. First responders killed,” he said in a statement.

“If the basic principles of humanitarian law still count, the international community must act while it can to uphold them.”