Across Asia: Syria

Ahmadinejad on visit

Syria and Iran put on a show of unity and defied US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday, dismissing her call on Damascus to loosen its decades-long alliance with Teheran.

President Bashar Al-Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed a bilateral deal to remove travel visas and attended a Muslim ceremony in the Syrian capital.

Ahmadinejad's visit came a day after Clinton said the United States was asking Syria "to begin to move away from the relationship with Iran", and to stop supporting the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Hezbollah, which is also backed by Iran.

"We must have understood Clinton wrong because of bad translation or our limited understanding, so we signed the agreement to cancel the visas," Assad said.

"I find it strange that they (Americans) talk about Middle East stability and peace and the other beautiful principles and call for two countries to move away from each other," he added..

(China Daily 02/26/2010 page11)