Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said his country and Syria should expand their cooperation to overcome political and economic pressure from the United States and Europe.

He made the remarks in a meeting with visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his accompanying delegation in the Iranian capital Tehran, according to a statement published on the leader’s website.

He said Iran’s Interim President Mohammad Mokhber would continue to promote cooperation between Tehran and Damascus, emphasising that the two countries are among the resistance front’s pillars.

The resistance front is a term often used to refer to an unwritten regional coalition comprising mainly Shiite countries and groups in West Asia, which seek to fight Israel and end its occupation of the Palestinian territories.

He said resistance was Syria’s defining identity, which gave it a distinguished standing in the region, and urged Syria to maintain this feature for national unity.

Mr Khamenei said the Westerners and their “stooges” in the region sought to destroy Syria’s political system and omit the Arab state from regional equations.

He said, “But they failed to do so. They still seek to eliminate Syria from the region’s equations through resorting to other methods, such as giving promises they would never fulfil.”

The Syrian president, for his part, extended condolences over the deaths of Iran’s late President Ebrahim Raisi and his entourage, describing Syria-Iran ties as strategic.

He praised the late Iranian president for deepening relations between Syria and Iran after Raisi took office in August 2021.

Mr Al-Assad stressed that his government’s position had always been that retreating in the face of the West would only further embolden it.

Iran and Syria are under sanctions imposed by the United States and some European countries.

(Xinhua/NAN)