ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The United States will fail in its plot to divide Syria and soon the Syrian state will bring all territories held by US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces under its control, including Raqqa, said an advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader.
Ali Akbar Velayati, while visiting Lebanon on Friday, said that recent gains in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq against extremist groups is a victory for the “resistance front,” a term Iran and its allies use for an alliance of state and non-state actors who oppose the United States and Israel in the Middle East.
He said the United States is now trying to apply “high pressure” in Syria with the aim of breaking the Iranian-led front. He predicted, however, that the US will fail in this task.
As part of the plot, Velayati said the United States is trying to use its influence in northeastern Syria to divide the country.
Iran has been supporting the Syrian regime led by President Bashar al-Assad and its allied militia since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
“The United States, stationed east of the Euphrates River, is after dividing Syria. But what is certain is that the United States will fail in this regard. Raqqa city will be liberated by the people and state of Syria and the Syrian state will bring the areas east of the Euphrates River under its control,” Velayati said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), whose backbone consists of the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG), liberated Raqqa from ISIS militants on October 17.
The Kurdish forces, who have founded a self-styled federal region known as Rojava in the north of the country, have said they want their autonomous region be recognized within a unified Syria. Damascus, occupied elsewhere in the country, has not recognized the region but has largely left the Kurds alone.
Velayati, while meeting a senior official from the Syrian foreign office two weeks ago, said Syrian advances will continue to Raqqa, “and eventually will oust the Americans from Syria.”
He said the US forces have 12 bases in the country without the consent of the Syrian state and their aim is to divide the country.
“Just as the Americans failed in Iraq, they will fail in Syria, too,” Velayati told the Syrian official, according to the state-run IRIB news agency.
East of Rojava, the Kurdistan Region held a referendum on independence on September 25 that saw nearly 93 percent of people voting to leave Iraq. The vote was crushed by Iraq and the Iranian-backed Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi when they took control of most of the disputed areas from the Peshmerga, including oil-rich Kirkuk in October. The disputed areas are claimed by both the Kurdistan and Iraqi governments.
Chief of staff for Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mohamadi Gulpaigani, stated in late October that the seizure of Kirkuk came on the instructions of Ayatollah Khamenei that were carried out by the commander of Iran’s Quds Force in order to spoil an American-Israeli plan to create an independent Kurdistan in Iraq, dubbing it a second Israel.
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