Ayatollah Khamenei, Assad spoke of reforms
Iran's former ambassador to Syria conceded in an interview that the Syrian government made mistakes in the first stages of the Syrian protests and revealed that Iran's supreme leader wrote a letter to Syria's president urging reforms.
Hossein Sheikholeslam, Iran's former ambassador to Syria and the current foreign policy adviser to the speaker of parliament, spoke to Ramze Obour magazine about Iran’s relationship with Syria and the mistakes of the Syrian government, revealing some previously unknown information.
Though Sheikholeslam’s comments were recently picked up by Shargh Newspaper, the original interview took place in April before the Syrian elections. Some of his points in the interview are noteworthy in that they concede mistakes by the Syrian government. The interviewer was unafraid to challenge the official on a topic rarely covered from a nuanced angle in Iran, and the discussion also addressed a letter from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to President Bashar al-Assad.
