Iranian president wins Syrian support on atomic row

By Rasha Elass

DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Syria said on Thursday Iran had a
right to acquire nuclear technology for peaceful means and
demanded Israel be stripped of its suspected nuclear arsenal.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held talks with
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at the start of a two-day
visit to Damascus, his first since he took office in August.

Syria and Iran both risk showdowns with the U.N. Security
Council — Damascus over a U.N. inquiry into the murder of a
Lebanese ex-prime minister and Tehran over its nuclear plans.

“We support the right of Iran and any state in the world to
acquire peaceful technology,” Assad told a joint news
conference after the talks. “Countries who oppose this gave no
convincing reason, regardless of whether it is legitimate or
not.”

The United States and the European Union’s three biggest
powers, Britain, France and Germany, said this month Iran’s
resumption of nuclear research meant it should be referred to
the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

Iran removed the U.N. seals on its uranium enrichment
equipment but says it has no intention of building nuclear arms
and seeks atomic energy only to generate electricity.

Assad renewed Syria’s call for a Middle East free of
nuclear weapons and said “the beginning should be with Israel.”
The Jewish state is widely believed to have nuclear weapons.

Syria also faces pressure from the Security Council, which
passed a resolution in October demanding it cooperate fully
with a U.N. inquiry into the February 14 assassination of
former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri or risk further
action.

Syria has denied any involvement in the murder but has said
it will not allow investigators to question Assad in the case.

STABILITY IN LEBANON

Assad said he supported stability in Lebanon and called for
an end to what he called foreign interference there.

Lebanon has been rocked by more bombings and killings since
Hariri’s death for which many Lebanese politicians blame Syria.

International and Lebanese pressure forced Syria to end its
29-year military presence in its smaller neighbor in April.

“We believe that the Lebanese people can find a solution
and I call on all factions to show restraint and patience,”
Ahmadinejad said.

Neither Syria nor Iran face an imminent threat of military
action or broad sanctions at the United Nations, but will come
under more diplomatic pressure on every front, analysts say.

Assad was the first head of a foreign state to visit Iran
after Ahmadinejad, a religious conservative, took office.

Iran’s new president seized that opportunity to vow closer
cooperation in the face of U.S. pressure and is returning the
visit at a time when Assad finds himself particularly isolated.

Both accused by Washington of sponsoring terrorism, Syria
and Iran are the main backers of Lebanon’s Hizbollah group,
itself under pressure to disarm under a 2004 U.N. resolution.

Hizbollah, the only Lebanese group to keep its arms after
Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, helped force Israel to end its
22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.

Both Syria and Iran accuse the United States of backing the
interests of their arch-foe Israel at the expense of Muslims
and Arabs. They defend Hizbollah’s right to resist the Jewish
state.

Ahmadinejad has caused an international furor by calling
for Israel to be wiped out and describing the Holocaust, in
which six million Jews were killed, as a myth.

(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi)