The Strategic Alliance Between Iran and Syria

The cooperation between Iran and Syria has recently broadened in a variety of areas, including the military, security, economic and scientific spheres.

Close relations between the two countries are evident, inter alia, in numerous reciprocal visits by their leaders and in statements made during these visits. Thus, for example, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei declared, during Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's February 2007 visit to Tehran, that Iran and Syria constitute a strategic depth for one another.

Strategic cooperation between the two countries was also expressed in statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a meeting with Syrian Prime Minister Muhammad Naji Al-Utri during his March 2007 visit to the country, when he said, "Iran and Syria have common enemies, [a circumstance] which requires perfect coordination vis-à-vis enemy plans, attainable through a maximal deepening of relations between them."

Assad, on his part, declared in Tehran in February 2007 that "enhancing relations between Tehran and Damascus is extremely important for solving the problems of the Islamic world, as well as for the progress of both Iran and Syria."

Furthermore, in February 11, 2007 meeting marking the 28th anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, held at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Al-Utri stressed that "strategic Syria-Iran cooperation and coordination are the only way to deal with the pressures and with the evil attack on them [by the West]."

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