Iranian Parliamentarian SaysAssad Could Win Elections
In an exclusive interview with Mojtaba Mousavi for Al-Monitor, Iranian parliamentarian Ismaeil Kowsari downplayed hopes for a breakthrough in P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran and suggested that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could win elections in 2014.
Ismaeil Kowsari is a member of the National Security Committee in the Iranian Majlis, a former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and former head of the Security Department of the General Staff of the armed forces.
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Kowsari said he believes the P5+1 group — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States — had responded to Iran’s proposals in Moscow with a “gentle tone,” but, he added, “As the supreme leader said, we didn’t see any positive outcome in the Almaty talks.” Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a meeting with members of the Assembly of Experts on March 6 said of the talks held Feb. 26–27 in Kazakhstan, “In this meeting, westerners did not do anything in particular that can be considered a concession. Rather, they merely acknowledged part of the Iranian nation's rights.”
