Iran, Russia: We’re against ‘external’ bid to oust Assad

Russia and Iran jointly oppose “external attempts” to bring regime change in Syria, a Kremlin official said on Monday in Tehran after President Vladimir Putin met Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The comments were a direct rebuff of repeated demands from the United States, France, Britain and Saudi Arabia that President Bashar al-Assad step down and play no future role in war-torn Syria.

On his first trip to Iran in eight years, Mr Putin, accompanied by his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, went straight into a meeting with Ayatollah Khamenei, the Islamic republic’s ultimate authority.

Describing the 90-minute encounter as “quite constructive” and longer than planned, a Kremlin spokesperson said the two countries had “unity of views” on Syria.

Russia and Iran are against “external attempts to dictate scenarios of political settlement” in the conflict-wracked state, and only Syria’s people could decide to dump Mr Assad in elections following a ceasefire.