Valiati: Bashar al-Assad Has Ordered the Establishment of Islamic Azad University Branches in All Syrian Cities

The head of the founding board and trustees of the Islamic Azad University of Iran announced that Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, has ordered the establishment of branches of this university in all cities of the country. According to the Young Journalists Club website affiliated with IRIB, Ali Akbar Velayati stated on Tuesday, January 16, that he has expressed the readiness of Islamic Azad University to establish a branch in Syria in a letter to Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Velayati also mentioned that the Syrian President has issued the order to establish Islamic Azad University in all cities of the country. He further announced that Islamic Azad University will establish branches in the cities of Karbala, Najaf, Baghdad, Basra, and Erbil based on a previous memorandum of understanding with the Iraqi government. According to the international unit of Islamic Azad University, this university has four 'overseas branches' in Afghanistan, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and Oxford. The plan of Islamic Azad University to create academic units in Syria comes at a time when many universities in the country have been destroyed due to the civil war. According to UNICEF statistics, one in four schools in Syria is either damaged, destroyed, or used for other purposes. Additionally, over 40% of students who remain in Syria do not attend school, and nearly a quarter of the country's teachers have left their jobs. The Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, has displaced and rendered homeless more than half of the country's 22 million population. Iran has provided significant financial assistance to Syria in recent years, including the establishment of two credit lines of one billion dollars and 3.6 billion dollars for exporting goods to this country. Iran and Syria have also signed multiple agreements regarding investment in the fields of oil, electricity, energy, and other industrial sectors. Bloomberg reported in 2015 that Tehran spends approximately six billion dollars annually to support Assad's government, with some instances of this assistance reaching up to 15 billion dollars. However, Hossein Salah Varzi, the Vice President of the Iran Chamber of Commerce, announced on December 24 that despite the allocation of a one billion dollar credit line to Syria by the Islamic Republic, this country has imposed 'restrictions' on the import of Iranian goods.