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| Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad during a meeting with Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili [Photo Credit: SANA] |
Damascus: Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad on Sunday said Israel was trying to destabilize Syria with a recent
air strike on Syrian territory.
Assad said scientific
research center in Jamraya in Damascus countryside reveals Israel's role, in
collaboration with the hostile foreign powers and their tools in Syria, to
destabilize and weaken Syria so as to force it to give up its national and
Pan-Arab stances and principles, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
It was his first reported
response since the air strike on January 30.
U.S. officials have
claimed that it targeted a convoy carrying antiaircraft weapons for the
Lebanese militant group Hizballah near the Syria-Lebanon border.
Israel has not publicly
commented on the strike. Nonetheless, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told
reporters at a security conference in Munich, Germany on February 3 that it was
"another proof that when we say something we mean it."
Receiving Secretary of
Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili on Sunday, President
al-Assad stressed that Syria is capable of confronting current challenges and
repelling any aggression.
Assad spoke during a
meeting with Saeed Jalili, Iran's National Security Council secretary, in
Damascus on February 3, state news agency reported.
The Russian and Iranian
foreign ministers met the Syrian opposition leader, Moaz al-Khatib, for the
first time today in a rare sign of diplomatic progress, but the bloodshed from
the conflict continued to worsen, with nearly 5,000 people reported dead in
January alone.