Russian and Iranian flags raised at Syrian 'independence' ceremony

Pictures of Russian and Iranian flags flown at a ceremony marking the 73rd anniversary of the withdrawal of colonial forces from Syria have not gone without Syrians noticing the irony.

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab

18 April, 2019

Syrian and Iranian flags appear together at a ceremony marking Syria's independence [GETTY]

Pictures of the Russian and Iranian flags flown at a ceremony marking the 73rd anniversary of the withdrawal of colonial forces from Syria have not gone without Syrians noticing the irony.

Syria was officially declared independent from French colonial rule on September 27th 1941, but it wasn’t until April 17^th 1946 that the last foreign soldier left Syrian soil.

It is this date that has been celebrated as “Evacuation Day” ever since.

Twitter Post

The ceremony in Damascus, however, prominently featured Russian and Iranian flags.

Twitter user Yasser Wardh tweeted pictures of Russian and Iranian flags being flown by riders on horseback at the ceremony saying, “In my stolen and occupied country, this is how Bashar al-Assad’s regime celebrates Evacuation Day, by raising the flags of Russia and Iran!... you’ve understood evacuation wrong!”

Twitter Post

Another Twitter user, Ghassan Al Kakouni, said “the regime gang celebrates the French colonial evacuation from Syrian land by raising the flags of the new occupiers, Russia and Iran…”

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard and pro-Iranian militias from Iraq and Lebanon have been present in Syria since the early days of the Syrian conflict, fighting on the side of the Assad regime. Russia also intervened militarily on the side of the Syrian regime in 2015.

In 2018 the Russian Defence Ministry released a video saying that more than 63,000 Russian soldiers had seen combat in Syria while human rights groups hold Russia responsible for the deaths of thousands of Syrian civilians.

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