Assad Not West's Emissary to Iran

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s visit to Iran received a considerable amount of attention from the media this week, with many websites and newspapers noting his insistence that he was not a messenger for western governments.



Assad, speaking at an August 3 press conference with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the end of his two-day visit to the country, said they discussed the Iranian nuclear crisis but downplayed its significance as a subject in their talks.



As the two leaders were meeting, Tehran failed to respond to demands that it freeze all nuclear activities.



On August 3, the pro-government website Syria News carried a headline in which Assad was quoted as saying, "I am neither an mediator nor an envoy. I didn't carry any message from any western official.”



Western media highlighted Assad’s comment that Syria was willing to help solve the Iranian crisis. Damascus has recently improved its relationship with France, and as part of this new engagement has indicated it would be willing to help resolve the nuclear crisis between Iran and the West.



The Los Angeles Times on August 4 quoted an Iranian government foreign policy adviser as saying that Assad had visited Ahmadinejad “to convey the message of the French president”.



This, the adviser said, was "absurd” because the most Assad could do would be to “convey this message that the threat of the West is serious, which already is known to Iran".



The Syrian government’s SANA news agency ran a story on August 3 which led with Assad’s statement that there had been a “sort of exaggeration” in which media had erroneously described him as a “western envoy on the Iranian nuclear dossier".



Assad was also quoted as saying, “We didn't start from France… we start from Iran to understand the Iranian point of view, and then we will decide if there is a possibility for playing a role or not".



The government newspaper Al-Thawra on August 3 emphasised “the importance of the Syrian role in creating new opportunities for dialogue between Tehran and the West”.



Elias Murad, editor-in-chief of Al-Baath newspaper, which is published by the ruling Baath party, wrote an editorial on August 3 asserting that Assad’s visit to Tehran was the most important to date, “because it is a clear and direct response to the rumours that relations between the two are being ruined by the indirect peace talk between Israel and Syria”.