Turkey establishing safe zones to lead to conflict: Syria FM

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Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian voiced concern over Turkey's military intervention in Syria. noting that Tehran was conducting negotiations on this issue.

Amir-Abdollahian also criticized the US occupation of Syria during a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad. "The United States is colonizing the oil wells in Eastern Syria, and Washington must leave this region."

He then went on to chastize Washington's main ally in the region, saying the Israeli occupation did not understand except through forces, "and normalization with it is treason."

Mekdad, on the other hand, said "everything going on in eastern Syria was against the will of the Syrian people in light of the US confiscating Syria's resources."

"Turkey working on establishing safe zones on Syrian soil will put it in a position of conflict with Damascus," Mekdad stressed as Ankara plans to expand its occupation of Syrian territories.

Damascus "opposes any Turkish involvement in Syria's territories to establish safe zones, and we are against the policy of Turkifying Syria and [Ankara's] support of terrorist organizations." 

The foreign minister stressed the importance of Turkey taking back any pretexts it has to occupy Syrian territories.

Syria's top diplomat then praised Iran's efforts to issue a balanced statement at the Tehran summit regarding the unity of the Syrian territories.

The page of US hegemony has been turned, and a multi-polar world must be created, Mekdad added. "If the US withdraws from Syria then that would be better for it, and our people will fight hard to expel the occupiers sooner or later."

Commenting on the Syrian refugee crisis, Mekdad said: "Syria welcomes the return of the refugees, and the Western countries are preventing them from returning to their homeland."

Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad on Tuesday touched down in the Iranian capital, Tehran, to discuss bilateral relations between his country and the Islamic Republic, as well as the latest developments in the regional and international arenas.

The top diplomat's visit to Iran coincides with the Tehran summit between Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Iranian president opened the tripartite summit with a speech, stressing that "the sanctions imposed on Syria contradict the sovereignty of countries, and Iran condemns these policies against the Syrian people."

Raisi noted the role of the Israeli occupation practices in destabilizing global security, saying that "the practices of the Zionist entity lead to destabilization of global security, which will have repercussions on the entity itself."