Iran Welcomes Syria Ties with Arabs, Says Nuclear Deal Close

Syria's Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, left, receives his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian, center, upon his arrival at the airport in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. (AP)
Syria's Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, left, receives his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian, center, upon his arrival at the airport in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. (AP)
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Iran Welcomes Syria Ties with Arabs, Says Nuclear Deal Close

Syria's Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, left, receives his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian, center, upon his arrival at the airport in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. (AP)
Syria's Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, left, receives his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian, center, upon his arrival at the airport in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. (AP)

The foreign ministers of Iran and Syria, two allies of Russia, discussed the war in Ukraine and other developments during a meeting in Damascus on Wednesday. Syria's top diplomat said Moscow is defending its people.

Faisal Mekdad spoke to reporters in Damascus after his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian, held talks with President Bashar al-Assad, Mekdad and top security official Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk.

Amirabdollahian welcomed the reconciliation approach by the United Arab Emirates toward Syria. He added that Tehran is close to reaching an agreement on its nuclear program with world powers.

Iran is a strong ally of Assad and has sent thousands of Iran-backed fighters from around the region to bolster Syrian government forces against opponents in the 11-year Syrian conflict. Russia has also supported Assad militarily, turning the tide of the war in his favor. The Syria war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.

Speaking about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Mekdad said “Russia is defending its right in protecting its people (by pushing) away the NATO presence on its direct border.”

“Russia is defending us all and is defending its sovereignty,” Mekdad added.

State news agency SANA said that during Assad's meeting with Amirabdollahian they discussed the conflict in Ukraine and they both agreed that “international balance should not be subjected to dangerous shocks through which Western countries threaten international peace and security."

During his visit, Amirabdollahian discussed the latest developments in Iran’s negotiations to restore Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. He also discussed Assad’s visit to the United Arab Emirates last week, which marked his first to an Arab country since the Syria war broke out, and meetings of the constitutional committee in Geneva between the Syrian government and opposition.

“We welcome and we are satisfied with what some Arab countries are doing by normalizing relations with Syria,” Amirabdollahian said.

Amirbdollahian said in Farsi that strategic relations between Iran and Syria are at their best. He later made a rare comment in Arabic, saying: “We are in the same trench, and we support Syria’s leadership, government and people.”

Like Iran, Russia is a strong ally of Syria and joined the war in 2015, which helped Assad’s forces regain control of much of the country. Russia has hundreds of troops deployed in Syria and an air base on the Mediterranean coast.

Nuclear negotiations nearly reached completion earlier this month before Moscow demanded that its trade with Iran be exempted from Western sanctions over Ukraine, throwing the process into disarray. Negotiators have yet to reconvene in the Austrian capital, and its unclear exactly what hurdles lie ahead.

The Iranian official said he believes that Tehran is close to reaching an agreement over its nuclear program and put the blame for delays on the American side, which he said should take “a realistic stance.” He did not elaborate.

Amirabdollahian’s visit comes two weeks after two members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were killed in an Israeli strike near the capital Damascus.

Days later Iran claimed responsibility for a missile barrage that struck near a sprawling US consulate complex in northern Iraq, saying it was retaliation for repeated Israeli strikes in Syria. The Revolutionary Guard said it fired off 12 cruise missiles at what it described as a “strategic center” of the Israeli spy agency Mossad, a claim denied by Iraqi officials.



ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
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ICC Opens Inquiry into Hungary for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest earlier this month. (AFP)

Judges at the International Criminal Court want Hungary to explain why it failed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest earlier this month.

In a filing released late Wednesday, The Hague-based court initiated non-compliance proceedings against Hungary after the country gave Netanyahu a red carpet welcome despite an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

During the visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country would quit the court, claiming on state radio that the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu.

“We signed an international treaty, but we never took all the steps that would otherwise have made it enforceable in Hungary,” Orbán said at the time, referring to the fact that Hungary’s parliament never promulgated the court’s statute into Hungarian law.

Judges at the ICC have previously dismissed similar arguments.

The ICC and other international organizations have criticized Hungary’s defiance of the warrant against Netanyahu. Days before his arrival, the president of the court’s oversight body wrote to the government in Hungary reminding it of its “specific obligation to comply with requests from the court for arrest and surrender.”

A spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment on the non-compliance proceedings.

Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC, a process that will take at least a year to complete, will make it the sole non-signatory within the 27-member European Union. With 125 current signatory countries, only the Philippines and Burundi have ever withdrawn from the court as Hungary intends.

Hungary has until May 23 to submit evidence in its defense.