Al-Assad and Ahmadinejad support stability in Lebanon

Syria's president Bashar al-Assad depicted on Thursday the official visit of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Syria as very significant underlining the two countries support of stability in Lebanon.

In a joint press conference with the Iranian president, al-Assad said the visit was very important and sessions of talks and meetings among the Iranian officials and their Syrian counterparts as well with President Ahmadinejad are not over.

President al-Assad held two sessions of talks with the visiting Iranian president one of them closed.

"We have confirmed our support for stability in Lebano,n and the need to back the resistance there, as well to prevent the interference in the internal affairs of Lebanon and internationalization," President al-Assad said.

He added that "we also expressed our support to Iran concerning her right to get peaceful nuclear technology and continuously welcomed dialogue on this subject between Iran and the international concerned parties noting that we rejected bids of pressure in this respect."

Al-Assad stressed that Syria supports making the Middle East region free from weapons of mass destruction noting that the start should be from Israel because it is the country in the region that possesses nuclear weapons.

The president noted that ties between Syria and Iran are based on solid ground and on a rich heritage as well a joint experience. "We have discussed many political issues and matters related to bilateral ties. Talks were rich and we agreed on most or all points raised," the president said.

Al-Assad said the there was focus on the subject of Iraq and "we agreed on the need to boost the current political process in Iraq and to work for Iraq's stability, the prevention of interference in Iraq's internal affairs, as well as backing foreign forces withdrawal according to a specific timetable."

Regarding the Palestinian issue, al-Assad said there was accord on the need to restore the Palestinian peoples legitimate rights atop of which the creation of a Palestinian state.

He said that this was in addition to guaranteeing the "right of return" to Palestinians, and "boosting the Palestinian people steadfastness and resistance against the Israeli oppressive actions."

On bilateral relations, al-Assad expressed satisfaction over these ties development saying "we discussed a number of mechanisms to help push this forward mainly to remove a number of administrative and bureaucratic hinders."