TEHRAN, 17 February 2005 — Iran and Syria, both locked in rows with the United States, said yesterday they would form a common front to face challenges and threats. “We are ready to help Syria on all grounds to confront threats,” Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said in Tehran after meeting Syrian Prime Minister Naji Al-Otari.
Otari told reporters: “This meeting, which takes place at this sensitive time, is important, especially because Syria and Iran face several challenges and it is necessary to build a common front”.
Syria’s ambassador to the United States, asked by CNN what the common front with Iran entailed, stressed that it was not an anti-American alliance and said Syria was trying to improve its relations with Washington. “Today we do not want to form a front against anybody, particularly not against the United States,” Imad Moustapha said.
“Syria is trying to engage constructively with the United States... We are not the enemies of the United States, and we do not want to be drawn into such an enmity,” he added.
Iran warned yesterday it would shoot down any US spy craft in its skies as a powerful earthworks blast triggered fears of an attack and underscored the high state of tension in Tehran’s standoff with the West over its nuclear activities. Intelligence Minister Ali Younessi confirmed the presence of “American spying instruments” in the skies over Iran and warned that they would be targeted by the military.
“We have the means to hit them and if they get near, our anti-aircraft defense systems will attend to it,” said Younessi. “Americans have been conducting spying activities in the Iranian sky for a long time.”
US media reports have said the United States has been flying drones over Iran since April 2004, seeking evidence of nuclear weapons programs and probing for weaknesses in Iran’s air defenses.
A big explosion near Iran’s Gulf port of Daylam raised speculation of military activity when local Arabic-language television said witnesses reported seeing a missile being fired from an unidentified plane. But a senior security official insisted there was no hostile strike, just major earthworks in an largely uninhabited area in the south of the country.
“It was an explosion set deliberately to blast through rock and open a road,” Supreme National Security Council spokesman Agha Mohammadi told AFP. “In no circumstances was it an attack against the Islamic republic’s nuclear installations.” Daylam is about 150 kilometers from Bushehr, where a nuclear plant is being built with Russian help.
