AMMAN: Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javid Zarif wore face masks on Monday for their meeting in Damascus where they said the West was exploiting the coronavirus pandemic for political ends, state media said.
State media said Assad conveyed condolences to Iran, where more than 5,200 people have died from the disease.
Echoing comments by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Zarif, who was also wearing gloves, was quoted as saying the US administration showed its “inhumane reality” by its refusal to lift sanctions on Syria and Iran when coronavirus was spreading around the world.
Assad said the handling of the crisis showed the West’s moral failure.
USSecretary of State Mike Pompeo has held out the possibility that the United States may consider easing sanctions on Iran and other nations to help fight the epidemic but given no concrete sign it plans to do so.
Speaking last month, Pompeo said humanitarian supplies were exempt from sanctions Washington reimposed on Tehran after President Donald Trump abandoned Iran’s 2015 multilateral deal to limit its nuclear program.
The United States has also ratcheted up sanctions on Syria since the uprising against Assad began in March 2001. The State Department says it is “trying to deprive the regime of the resources it needs to continue violence against civilians.”
The Syrian government says it has 39 confirmed cases of coronavirus and three dead. Medics and witnesses say there are many more. Officials, who deny any cover-up, have imposed a lockdown and measures including a night-time curfew to stem the pandemic.
The presence of thousands of Iranian militias fighting alongside Assad’s forces in Syria and Iranian pilgrims have been cited by some medics and humanitarian workers as a main source of the contagion in Syria.
Wearing face masks, Syria’s Assad and Iran’s Zarif condemn West at Damascus meeting
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Wearing face masks, Syria’s Assad and Iran’s Zarif condemn West at Damascus meeting
- Assad said the handling of the coronavirus crisis showed the West’s moral failure
Syrian government says it controls prison in Raqqa with Daesh-linked detainees
- Prison holds detainees linked to Daesh, and witnessed clashes in its vicinity between advancing Syrian government forces and Kurdish fighters
Syria’s Interior Ministry said on Friday it had taken over Al-Aktan prison in the city of Raqqa in northeastern Syria, a facility that was formerly under the control of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The prison has been holding detainees linked to the militant group Daesh, and witnessed clashes in its vicinity this week between advancing Syrian government forces and the SDF.
It was not immediately clear how many Daesh detainees remain in Al-Aktan prison as the US military has started transferring up to 7,000 prisoners linked to the militant Islamist group from Syrian jails to neighboring Iraq. US officials say the detainees are citizens of many countries, including in Europe.
“Specialized teams were formed from the counter-terrorism department and other relevant authorities to take over the tasks of guarding and securing the prison and controlling the security situation inside it,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Under a sweeping integration deal agreed on Sunday, responsibility for prisons housing Daesh detainees was meant to be transferred to the Syrian government.
The SDF said on Monday it was battling Syrian government forces near Al-Aktan and that the seizure of the prison by the government forces “could have serious security repercussions that threaten stability and pave the way for a return to chaos and terrorism.”
The US transfer of Daesh prisoners follows the rapid collapse of Kurdish-led forces in northeast Syria. Concerns over prison security intensified after the escape on Tuesday of roughly 200 low-level Daesh fighters from Syria’s Shaddadi prison. Syrian government forces later recaptured many of them.
