Uncertainty Surrounding Syria's $30 Billion Debt to Iran

Two former representatives of the Islamic Consultative Assembly have reported uncertainty regarding the settlement of Syria's $30 billion debt to Iran amid the rapid advance of Bashar al-Assad's opponents toward Damascus and the potential fall of his government. Bahram Parsai, a former representative, wrote on December 7 that 'when I was in the parliament, Syria and Bashar al-Assad's debt to Iran was $30 billion, which was not approved by the parliament contrary to Article 80 of the Constitution.' He further specified that this debt 'at a rate of 70,000 tomans per dollar equals two thousand trillion tomans. What is the fate of this large amount?' Concurrently, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, the former head of the National Security Commission of the parliament, also wrote: 'In response to the war and sanctions profiteers who say to suspend negotiations due to the unrest in Syria! The Syrian war is not the war of the Iranian people. The government has not yet clarified the billions of dollars spent on the previous war; it should not put the lives and property of Iranians at risk again.' He had previously announced the Assad government's debt to Iran as '30 billion dollars' in May of this year. Part of this debt is due to the shipment of oil by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to Syria. Are the Islamic Republic's leaders accepting the fall of Bashar al-Assad? Data from the commodity information company, Kpler, indicates that Iran has delivered an average of 70,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil per day to Syria over the past years. The annual value of this volume of oil is about two to 2.5 billion dollars. With the rapid advance of Assad's opponents, reports indicate the beginning of the withdrawal of IRGC forces from Syria. It is not exactly clear whether Iran's oil shipments to Syria continue, but Kpler's data shows that Iran continued its oil deliveries to Syria until the end of last month. The uncertainty surrounding the payment of Syria's '30 billion dollar debt' to Iran comes at a time when the likelihood of the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government has increased, and this amount of debt is equivalent to three times Syria's total GDP. The risk of losing such a large debt from Syria to Iran arises while the Islamic Republic has spent large sums to finance proxy forces in Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon. Recently, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah Lebanon announced that with financial assistance, mostly from Iran, each household whose home was completely destroyed in Beirut due to Israeli attacks would receive a total of '14,000 dollars.' Meanwhile, Iranian citizens are facing poverty, rampant inflation, and a housing crisis, and Masoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran, has recently reported a monetary imbalance and a huge budget deficit.