Moscow evacuated 4,000 Iranian soldiers from Syria to Tehran by air after rebels took control of the country, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, suggesting Iran depended on Russia to flee the country after it fell to rebels.
Just as Iran had originally requested Russia transport its units to Syria to back now ousted President Bashar al-Assad, Putin said in remarks carried by state media, Tehran again sought Moscow's aid to evacuate the soldiers.
"If earlier, for example, our Iranian friends asked us to help them transport their units to Syrian territory, now they asked us to withdraw them from there," Putin said. "We took 4,000 Iranian fighters to Tehran from the Hmeimim base. Some of the so-called pro-Iranian units left without a fight for Lebanon, some for Iraq."
But a senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards swiftly denied the claim later on Thursday, marking a rare public disagreement between the two partners in arms.
"A large number of Iranians have been living in Syria for a long time, and Russia relocated most of them to Iran," said Mohammad Jafar Asadi, deputy commander of the Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarters, a construction giant.
"These were not Iran's advisory forces; we withdrew our advisory forces from Syria ourselves," he added. "We do not allow Russia to relocate our military forces."
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a transnational military organization that lies at the heart of Iran's ruling establishment, has been a key ally of Russia in Syria and Ukraine.
Moscow has launched hundreds of IRGC-provided drones at Kyiv's forces while Iranian and Russian troops together fought the Islamist rebels now running Syria after they seized Damascus from President Bashar al-Assad.
Staying in Syria
Putin suggested Russia's decades-old military presence was not set to be upended by Syria's upheaval, even as Iran appeared to have been decisively ejected.
“We maintain contact with all groupings in Syria and all countries in the region. They all say that it would be better if we kept our bases there,” Putin said in his first public comments on the subject.
Putin also said he had not yet met with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since his overthrow and subsequent flight to Moscow earlier this month but noted that he planned to do so.
Russia, which intervened in Syria in 2015 and shifted the course of the civil war in Assad's favor, had also informed other countries that they could use its air and naval base to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria, he said.
"You want to portray everything that is happening in Syria as some kind of failure, a defeat for Russia. I assure you, it is not. And I'll tell you why. We came to Syria 10 years ago to prevent a terrorist enclave from being created there," said Putin.
"On the whole, we have achieved our goal. It is not for nothing that today many European countries and the United States want to establish relations with them (Syria's new rulers). If they are terrorist organisations, why are you (the West) going there? So that means they have changed."
His comments come as European Union (EU) nations seek assurances from Syria's new leaders that they will distance themselves from Russia and Iran and work toward a peaceful future for the country after years of civil war.
“Russia and Iran are not your friends, (and) are not helping you if you are in trouble. They left Assad’s regime, and that is a very clear message showing that their hands are full elsewhere and they are weakened,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday, addressing Syria’s new leaders.
