Democracy is the solution to Syrian crisis:Iranian security chief

TEHRAN,Aug.13(MNA) – The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said that democracy is the solution to the Syrian crisis. “The solution to (the Syrian crisis) is hidden in one word, which is democracy. The Syrian people should be given time to freely determine their future and fate,” SNSC Secretary Saeed Jalili said in a televised interview with the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen satellite television channel on Friday. “The establishment of such a democracy cannot be achieved through military aggression and sending armed men and terrorists, but it can be achieved through the free will of the people,” he stated. The solution to the crisis is not foreign intervention, he added. He also said that Iran has proposed a solution to the crisis, which calls for an end to the violence and clashes, a national dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition, and a free and fair election that allows the Syrian people to voice their demands. Elsewhere in his remarks, Jalili said that Iran believes that Syria is a stronghold for the resistance against the Zionist regime. “We believe that the Israeli enemy, which is opposed to the ruling system in Syria, does not wish for the well-being and freedom of the Syrian people, but it is seeking to take revenge on Syria for supporting the resistance,” he said. He also advised the Turkish government not to make a strategic mistake with regard to Syria. “We should not allow the confrontation between the Islamic resistance and the Islamic ummah and the Zionist enemy and the hegemonistic policies of the United States to turn into a confrontation within the Islamic ummah,” he said. On the claims that Iran is meddling in Syria’s internal affairs and that the forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps are present in Syria, Jalili said, “We don’t care about such lies and deceptive media techniques which are aimed at undermining the relations between Iran and Syria.” On the lack of progress in the talks between Tehran and the 5+1 group (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) over the country’s nuclear program, he said that the main issue is not Iran’s nuclear program. “They had once told us that the problem with Iran is not the nuclear issue, but (the problem) is its principled policies and its support for the resistance of Palestine and Lebanon,” he said.