Last week, the violence in Syria came close to spilling across the country’s borders and spiraling into a regional conflict. SPIEGEL spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi about his country’s continued support of Syrian autocrat Bashar Assad, NATO’s delicate role in the region and Iran’s nuclear program.
The Frankfurt residence of the Iranian consul general is a yellow villa in the posh neighborhood of Sachsenhausen, with artificial turf in front of the entrance and Persian carpets in the corridors and rooms. There are bowls of pistachios and figs on the table in the reception room, and the walls are adorned with pictures of Iran’s late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his successor, Ali Khamenei.
For a few hours last Thursday, this building served as the headquarters for Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, 63, who had arrived from New York at noon and had a layover in Frankfurt on his return trip to Tehran. Salehi had just attended the United Nations General Assembly and subsequently met with his counterparts from Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to talk about the escalation in the Middle East. These four nations form the so-called Syria quartet, which is endeavoring to end the civil war in the country. Salehi is one of the few Iranian top politicians who is familiar with both the West and the East. He studied at the American University of Beirut and received a PhD in engineering from MIT in 1977. In 2009, he became the head of Iran’s nuclear program. Now, he is also Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s representative abroad.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Foreign Minister, it is beginning to look as though a war could break out on NATO’s border with Syria. How dangerous is the situation in the region?
Salehi: In the name of God, the compassionate and the merciful, we have to prevent catastrophes. I call on both sides to exercise restraint. In Syria, thousands are fighting against the government of Bashar al-Assad, and they are armed with state-of-the-art weaponry. If Turkey were to massively retaliate sometime in the coming weeks or months, they would have no objections. They want to render peace initiatives impossible. They are seeking an escalation.
SPIEGEL: Are you referring to the armed Syrian opposition? Or to terrorists from the international al-Qaida network?
Salehi: I don’t intend to associate the perpetrators of violence with a specific country or a specific organization. But one thing is certain: Military forces infiltrating Syria are seeking to internationalize the conflict. If the region goes up in flames, then they have achieved their objective.
SPIEGEL: Yet it appears to have been the Syrian military that fired across the border, not the rebels or the perpetrators of violence that you are referring to. Do you condemn Turkey’s retaliatory attacks?
Salehi: Every country has the right to protect itself if it is attacked. When the Syrians shot down a Turkish fighter jet in June, though, Ankara refrained from launching a counterattack. At the time, I expressed my recognition of this to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — it was statesmanlike and wise. Now, a sense of proportionality must be retained, or we will fall into the trap of the extremists.
SPIEGEL: Since Turkey is a member of NATO, the organization is standing by its side and condemning the incident as an “aggressive act.”
Salehi: It would not be appropriate for me to give advice to the Western military alliance. But NATO cannot afford to make a mistake and worsen the situation.
SPIEGEL: Such as the establishment of a buffer zone in northern Syria and a no-fly zone for Assad’s air force?
Salehi: By doing so, the West would react just as wrongly as it did in 2011 in Libya. This was an improper interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state …
SPIEGEL: … but it probably prevented a massacre in Benghazi and helped an entire people free itself from a dictator.
Salehi: We should proceed according to the rules of international law. Syria is in the midst of a crisis; four or five of its 14 provinces are facing difficulties. Bashar al-Assad’s government largely has the situation under control.
SPIEGEL: You are downplaying the actions of a regime that is shelling its own people — the civil war has already claimed the lives of 30,000 people.
Salehi: What is happening in Syria is tragic, and its not just government troops that are responsible. Assad poses no threat to the region, or to world peace, for that matter. We are not uncritical of him; the government has made mistakes. Originally there were only calls for more democracy and changes. But then the movement began to be increasingly controlled from abroad.
SPIEGEL: Are you thinking of the US and Israel? Or Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are arming the resistance and are now calling for an Arab intervention force?
Salehi: Whatever the case, we are dealing with an external push for regime change. Our experiences in Iraq show that some powers are willing to resort to any means and any manipulation. In order to legitimize their war against Baghdad, the US accused Saddam Hussein of producing weapons of mass destruction. Something similar cannot be allowed to happen with Assad.
Spiegel has the full interview
