Iran’s Ali Akbar Velayati (R) shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin before a meeting in Moscow on January 28, 2015. Press TV
While diplomats from 70 countries talked in London about how to raise $9 bn for projects to rehabilitate Syria’s refugees and rebuild their war-ravaged country, its future was further clouded this week by an argument that flared between the main arbiters, Russia and Iran.
Ali Akbar Velayati, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s foreign affairs advisor, spent three days in Moscow Feb. 1-4 haranguing Russian leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, whom he saw twice, on the differences that had cropped up in their long political and military cooperation for propping up the Assad regime.
The Iranian official went home without resolving those differences, DEBKAfile’s sources report exclusively. Left pending were not just the next stage of the war but also the fate of President Bashar Assad.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Regular readers of this blog know that I am sceptical of posting stories from Debka .... but this one makes "some sense". Ali Akbar Velayati was in Moscow for a few days .... Iran’s Velayati submits Rouhani’s message to Russian president (Press TV). And while the public focus of this meeting was on Iran’s status at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) .... Kremlin watchers know that President Putin would not spend that much time talking with a foreign adviser on their country's status in the SCO .... instead it has to be on something bigger .... like the war in Syria. Russia is looking for a solution to the Syrian war, and I do know that the Kremlin is not interested in being bogged down for years in the Syrian mess. A political solution is what will end this war, and a reconciliation with some of the rebel groups will need to be done in order to defeat the more radical groups like Al Nusra and the Islamic State. And while the Iranian leadership has made it very clear that they want to destroy all of the rebel groups .... realistically it is not possible unless they wish to deploy tens of thousands of soldiers to defeat the rebels, and to then occupy the country to insure the peace ... which of course Iran is not capable of doing.