Does this mean they won't come to their defense?
"Iran tells Syria to recognize demands; Remarks are first from ally about protest movement" by Nada Bakri, New York Times / August 28, 2011
BEIRUT - Iran, Syria’s closest ally, called on the government in Damascus to recognize its people’s “legitimate’’ demands yesterday, the first such remarks to come from the country since the five-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad started.
Although the remarks, by Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, were broad and did not call for Assad to step down, they were the first public sign of growing unease with the crisis in Syria - even as Iran has maintained an unyielding crackdown on its own dissenters.
Other governments in the region are increasingly worried that the crisis could spill beyond Syria’s borders, especially given Assad’s seeming determination to snuff out a resilient demonstration movement despite the cost in sectarian and social tensions.
Looks as if it is being driven that way to me.
That violence continued yesterday as Syrian security forces opened fire on hundreds of demonstrators across the country, killing at least three people, according to activists.
“The government should answer to the demands of its people, be it Syria, Yemen, or other countries,’’ Salehi was quoted by the ISNA news agency as saying. “The people of these nations have legitimate demands, and the governments should answer these demands as soon as possible.’’
But Salehi warned of dangerous regional implications if the crisis in Syria were not solved peacefully, in a reference to the international military intervention in Libya to help rebels there end the rule of Moammar Khadafy....
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