Middle East Eye:

By Maysam Behravesh

Like most Arab and European governments, Iran has condemned Turkey’s military offensive in northeastern Syria, which started shortly after US President Donald Trump abruptly ordered the withdrawal of American forces stationed along the border following a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ahmed Aboul Gheit, secretary general of the Arab League - a regional organisation of 22 Arab states in the Middle East and North Africa - described the incursion as “a blatant violation of Syria’s sovereignty” that “could allow for the revival” of the Islamic State (IS) group, as the league called for a crisis meeting on Saturday to discuss its consequences.

In a similar vein, the European Union has strongly criticised the invasion, with EU high representative for foreign policy Federica Mogherini warning that the invasion risked "protracted instability in northeast Syria, providing fertile ground for the resurgence” of IS. Some European governments have also threatened sanctions and an arms embargo against Ankara.

Iran, Turkey’s close trading partner and neighbour to the northwest, has joined the chorus, but the stakes for it are fundamentally different - explaining why the Islamic Republic has not moved beyond verbal criticism and refrained, say, from deploying paramilitary forces under its command to defend Syrian sovereignty and Kurdish-held territories.
Iran's verbal denunciation

The Iranian foreign ministry expressed “concern” on Thursday over Turkey’s military operation, which had started a day earlier, and demanded “an immediate stop to the attacks and the exit of the Turkish military from Syrian territory”.

Turkey has stated that its offensive seeks to remove the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition of anti- Bashar al-Assad militias from northern Syria.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had earlier flagged up a 1998 security pact signed between Turkey and Syria - commonly known as the Adana agreement - as a legal framework for peacefully establishing security on the Turkish-Syrian border.

According to the accord, then-Syrian president Hafez al-Assad pledged to shut down the bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) - which Ankara regards a terrorist group - in Syria and expel its leader Abdullah Ocalan from the country.  

Go to link