A top foreign policy adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei said Friday after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Iranian forces will remain in Syria despite protests from Israel and the Trump administration.
Speculation has been building that Mr. Putin and President Trump may be preparing a deal Monday in their Helsinki summit on the future of Syria as the Bashar Assad government appears close to winning the country’s brutal seven-year civil war, a deal that would include the withdrawal of Iranian units that have been backing Mr. Assad.
Israel has pressed hard for the removal of Iranian and Hezbollah forces, especially as the Syrian government has reclaimed territory close to the Israeli border along the Golan Heights. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with Mr. Putin in Moscow earlier this week that focused heavily on the Syrian crisis.
But Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior envoy of the Iranian leader who met with Mr. Putin Thursday, told reporters in Moscow Friday that Iran would not be forced out of Syria.
“We have come there without the Americans’ permission and we won’t heed their demands to leave,” Mr. Velayati said, according to Iranian press accounts.
Iran sees its presence in Syria as leverage in the regional battle for influence with Israel and U.S. Persian Gulf Arab allies, and Tehran also is said to be eyeing the hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts to rebuild Syria when the fighting is over.
Russia and Iran have provided critical military support to help the Assad government turn the tide of the war. It is not clear Mr. Putin has the clout to order Iranian forces to depart, although there has been talk of an Iranian pullback from positions too close to the Israeli border.
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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