TEHRAN, Jan 13 (AFP) - Iran has not stopped supporting Syria and has every confidence in President Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian ambassador here said Thursday, despite the expectations that peace talks with Israel will drive a wedge between the two traditionally close states.
Tehran trusts Assad's ability "to achieve a courageous peace," the Syrian ambassador to Tehran, Ahmad Hassan, claimed.
This is different from Iran's attitude toward the Palestinians, the Syrian ambassador said, "because the Palestinians have not obtained peace, but have made concessions."
"Syria is still honest in its principles. Peace is our strategic option," he added.
Hassan pointed out that no peace agreement had yet been reached with Israel, and Syria and Iran both continue to believe resistance to the Israeli presence in Lebanon, including that by Hizbullah, "is legal."
However, he added that "If Israel withdraws from Lebanon, at that time, Hizbullah has to adopt another style in its strategy."
Syria, which along with Iran backs Hizbullah, is the main powerbroker in Lebanon, where it maintains 35,000 troops.
Damascus and Beirut have insisted that their two tracks of the peace process with Israel cannot be separated, and Lebanon is expected to join talks with Israel shortly.
Israel has called on Syria, as proof of its good intentions, to rein in the activities of Hizbullah, which spearheads efforts to drive Israeli troops out of Lebanon. Hizbullah has not made clear its plans in case of an Israeli withdrawal.
Hassan sprang to the defense of Iran and its refusal to recognize Israel, as well as its widely criticized opposition to the current Middle East peace process. "Israel tries to make difficulties and to postpone its implementation of peace. Why do mass media accuse Iran, and not those who are making big demonstrations?" he asked, in an allusion to Monday evening's mass rally by Israelis in Tel Aviv against an evacuation of the occupied Golan Heights.
He stressed that the return of the strategic heights, which Israeli seized in 1967 and annexed in 1981, was the bedrock of Syrian demands, although Damascus was prepared to be flexible.
"We are not going to negotiate about withdrawal from the Golan. This is our land, but we can discuss about drawing the borders," he said.
Syria has consistently demanded an Israeli pullback to the border in force on June 4, 1967, when it seized the area, while Israel claims the only international border is that of 1923, which crucially denies Syria access to the Sea of Galilee.
Hassan stressed that relations between Tehran and Damascus had not changed. "We have good relations, strategic relations, but it is not a strategic alliance or axis, because we think that could help to increase tension in the region instead of reducing it," he said.
He confirmed that Assad's son Bashar - tipped by many analysts as his father's potential successor - will visit Tehran shortly, but said the date had not yet been fixed.
He claimed that Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had not been speaking about Syria when in a fiery sermon delivered on December 31, "World Jerusalem Day," he criticized those who negotiate with Israel.
"I don't want to cite the one-time revolutionary nations by name ... but any negotiation with the Zionist regime amounts to treason," Khamenei said, only days ahead of the start of the second round of peace talks between Syria and Israel.
