Tehran, Iran – Iran has continued to voice support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as opposition fighters carry on with a blistering military offensive that aims to overthrow the government.

The foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkiye held Astana-format talks, joined by United Nations representatives in Qatar on Saturday, as more Syrian cities fell to the armed opposition groups.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters after the meeting in Doha that participants agreed that the conflict should end and that political dialogue needs to be established between the Syrian government and “legitimate opposition groups”.

He met with his Syrian and Iraqi counterparts in Baghdad a day earlier, their statement saying “continuous coordination, cooperation and diplomatic engagement” is the only way to avoid further escalation.

At a joint news conference after the meeting, Iran’s top diplomat said his country would stand with Syria against groups that “are without a doubt carrying out an American-Zionist conspiracy”.

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Tehran has emphasised the idea that the rebels are foreign-supported in an apparent effort to prevent this offensive from being seen as a mere continuation of the civil war in Syria – which had solidified al-Assad’s position after 13 years of fighting that destroyed much of the country.

Iran has also issued stern warnings that fighting in Syria could spread across the region, considering the high level of tension amid Israel’s brutal war on Gaza.

Lightning offensive

The opposition offensive started last week, just after Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a shaky ceasefire deal that has held so far despite numerous violations.

It was launched from Idlib by the group controlling the governorate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), along with allied armed factions.

HTS’s chequered past saw it start as al-Qaeda offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra until its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, embraced a more nationalistic – rather than transnational – mission and rebranded as HTS in 2017, ostensibly a more “moderate” group amid the factions competing for Syria.

Al-Julani has been at the forefront of a media campaign emphasising HTS’s reformed ways, being filmed in public in Aleppo multiple times, including this week after an Iranian lawmaker proudly proclaimed in parliament that he had been killed in a Russian air strike.

He also released videos of himself directly addressing the people and leaders of Syria and the region and gave an interview to CNN on Friday and allowed it to report from Aleppo hours after the city was taken.

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Asked why people should believe his reforms while HTS remains designated a “terrorist” organisation by the UN, the US and the EU – and there is a $10m reward on his head – he said: “These classifications are primarily political and wrong.”

He promised he would build an “institutions-based” Syria that would recognise the country’s ethnic, cultural and sectarian diversities.

Iran and Turkiye, in light of Syria

The Iranian foreign ministry has been hesitant to publicly rebuke Ankara for its backing of HTS, but Araghchi met with his counterpart in Turkiye on Monday for a reportedly tense conversation prior to the talks on Saturday.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a longtime foreign policy advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appeared to express disbelief about Turkish support for the Syria offensive earlier this week.

“We did not think that Turkiye would fall in the hole dug” by the US and Israel, he said, suggesting that the shifting reality in Syria is Israeli and Western-backed and would harm the whole of the Muslim world.

However, Iranian state television late on Friday started referring to the rebels as “armed groups” in an apparent policy shift from calling them “terrorists”.

During an address on Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan backed the rebel offensive and said he had contacted al-Assad to hold talks and find a solution but did not receive a positive response.

“Idlib, Hama, Homs, and of course, the ultimate target is Damascus,” Erdogan said. “Our hope is that this march in Syria proceeds without any accidents or troubles.”

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Erdogan has been seeking to eliminate an armed Kurdish presence or territory on Turkiye’s borders, as the country tries to resolve a longrunning struggle against armed Kurdish separatists, the outlawed PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party).

It also wants to establish a “safe zone” in northern Syria to resettle millions of Syrian refugees currently in Turkiye.

An operative fighting to overthrow the al-Assad government carries a rocket in the northern outskirts of Hama on December 4, 2024 [Bakr Al Kassem/AFP]

Near Iran’s borders to the north, Turkiye is supporting the Zangezur Corridor, a proposed transport route linking Azerbaijan to its exclave Nakhchivan through Armenia’s Syunik Province, which would effectively connect Turkiye, Azerbaijan and Central Asia.

If realised, the corridor would sever a significant Iranian route to Europe and bypass Armenian control.

Within this context, a major difference between the continuing offensive in Syria and the conflict that started in 2011 is the level of overt support provided to anti-Assad forces by Turkiye, Tehran-based political analyst Ehsan Movahedian said.

“While much of the fighting during the time of the civil war was driven by ideology, the nature of the fighting this time predominantly revolves around geopolitical goals,” Movahedian told Al Jazeera.

“Turkiye is pursuing an array of geopolitical goals, including dealing a blow to the interests of Iran and the axis of resistance across the region, and reaping potential economic gains by expanding its presence in northern Syria.”

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Movahedian said Ankara may inadvertently push Arab nations’ stance on Syria closer to Iran since HTS has displayed “radical” thinking over the years that does not enjoy broad backing in the Arab and Islamic world.

What’s next?

Iran’s Araghchi has threatened that Tehran could directly send soldiers into Syria, without saying what conditions would prompt Tehran to make that move.

The Iranian foreign ministry on Saturday denied reports that Tehran’s embassy in Damascus has been evacuated.

But Tehran has not officially commented on media reports that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel and some other Iran-aligned fighters have evacuated Syria.

Especially in this environment, sending in a large number of soldiers would be a significant shift for Iran, which has so far relied on proxy fighters and sending in senior commanders as “military advisers” rather than keeping Iranian boots on the ground. At least one Iranian general has been killed in Syria since the flareup of fighting last week.

Two generals and other senior IRGC personnel have been killed in Israeli air strikes since the start of the war on Gaza. Another top IRGC commander was killed in Lebanon in late September as he was in the same bunker with assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

“Syria is on the brink of collapse and we are watching coolly,” Tehran lawmaker Ahmad Naderi wrote in a post on X, echoing a sentiment that has been reflected by state television commentators as well.

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“If Damascus falls, we will also lose Lebanon and Iraq and must fight the enemy on our borders. We have given much blood to preserve Syria.”

The MP added he does not understand why Iran is not more eager to intervene, but “whatever the reason is, it’s not to the benefit of the country and something must be done before it is too late”.

Other members of the Iran-led axis of resistance – Hezbollah in Lebanon and armed factions in Iraq – have expressed their backing for al-Assad’s government.

But despite videos circulating online that have purportedly shown tens of thousands of soldiers and heavy arms ready to deploy to Syria from Iraq – and some even entering Syria – there has been no official deployment.

Opposition factions continued their advance on Friday towards Homs [İzettin Kasım/Anadolu Agency]

HTS in a statement late Friday asserted that it would not invade Lebanon and Al-Julani released a video asking Iraqi forces not to enter Syria, prompting a pro-Iran Kataeb Hezbollah leader to accuse him of using “Zionist-stricken mercenaries”.

Iran and Russia would need to send in major military assistance if they want to revitalise al-Assad, according to Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International and a Middle East analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, who said he is “very sceptical” this would happen under current circumstances.

He added that sending Iranian troops to Syria would also be risky due to Israeli attacks on Iranian positions there, and Russia may not be prepared to back them with significant air power due to the war in Ukraine.

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“Whether Assad keeps his regime afloat or not, Syria is unlikely to have a well-functioning central government for a while.

“Parts of Syria may just degenerate into warring fiefdoms, with extremism, guns, and refugees pouring out across the borders. There’s a real risk of that, especially along the Jordanian and Iraqi borders.”