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.

Sheikholeslam said that the best way out of Syria’s civil war, which has left over 170,000 dead and much of country destroyed, is through elections, as experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan show that people would not support extremists in elections. When asked, “Isn’t it too late for that now in Syria?” he said, “Yes, everything is too late. We should have done it earlier.” 

He said, “From day one, the supreme leader took a position that Syria needs to undergo reforms.” He said that Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, took a message to Assad written by Ayatollah Khamenei in the first days of the protests. The message said, “The killings should not take place and reforms have to be accepted.”