Assad Postpones Visit to Tehran

President Bashar al-Assad postponed a visit to Tehran after press reports said he had been asked by France to mediate the release of a French citizen being held prisoner in Iran, an August 16 article in the website All4Syria said.



Clotilde Reiss, 24, a French embassy employee in Tehran, was freed from prison on bail on Sunday after being held for six weeks on charges of helping a revolt aimed at toppling the Islamic regime.



The website said that Assad had intended to visit Iran on August 13, quoting the pro-government Iranian TV channel The World and the Kuwaiti newspaper The News.



The French daily Le Monde reported on August 14 that Damascus was intervening with Tehran for Reiss’s release, the website added. Later, a statement by the French presidential palace stated that France had made many interventions to secure the release of the French national, it said.



The website said that these French official and media declarations had embarrassed Assad, who did not want to be seen as a mere mediator in such an affair.



It added that several articles appeared subsequently on Syrian websites criticising Assad for planning to go to Iran to free a French prisoner of conscience while many political detainees remain in Syrian jails.



The website argued that a Syrian visit to Iran would have been sensitive at this time because despite good relations between the two countries, Iran would not accept

interference in its internal affairs.



If Assad were to return from such a visit without Reiss’s release, it would have been interpreted as a sign that Syria’s influence over Iran was meagre, especially since Damascus has sold itself to the west as the gateway to Iran, the website said.



It concluded that Assad had decided for all these reasons to put off his visit.



The website added that Iran finally decided to reward Syria by freeing the French academic, a move expected to boost French-Syrian relations.



The New York Times reported in its August 18 edition that Reiss was released from prison after France, using Syria as an intermediary, reached agreement with Tehran to pay her bail.

The newspaper said that the release of the French academic "underscored Paris's readiness to see Syria in a regional mediation role".