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Iranian President Condemns Israeli Air Raids on Syrian Target
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Monday condemned Israel's air raids on a Syrian radar station in Lebanon, the official IRNA news agency reported.
In a telephone conversation with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, Khatami termed as "aggressive" such air raids, saying that "it is natural for Israel to conduct such a mad action in retaliation for its failure in the region."
He said the Israeli attacks "have drawn the wrath of the public opinion," adding that Israel is trying to detract the world's attention from its atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Khatami appreciated Syria's "courageous" stance against Israel and voiced Iran's full support for its regional ally.
For his part, the Syrian president said that Israel's air raids are "a result of the blows it has suffered from the clear and correct stance adopted by Syria and Iran toward the issue of Palestine and Lebanon."
Israeli warplanes attacked a Syrian radar station in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon on Sunday, injuring two Syrian and one Lebanese soldiers, in retaliation for attacks launched by the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, or Party of God, on Israeli positions in the disputed Shebaa Farms on Friday.
This was the second air raids on Syrian army positions in Lebanon since last April when Israel bombarded a Syrian radar station, killing three Syrian soldiers and injuring six others, after an Israeli soldier was killed in Hezbollah's attacks on the Farms.
Israel withdrew its troops from south Lebanon in May, 2000 after a 22-year occupation. But Lebanon and Syria claim that the Shebaa Farms area belongs to Lebanon. The Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah vows to continue fighting against Israel as long as it occupies the farms.
The United Nations and Israel regard the area as part of Syrian territory. Israel says the fate of the farms should be determined in its peace talks with Syria.
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