TEHRAN - Iran condemned the intrusion this week of Israeli aircraft into Syrian airspace, calling it shameful and provocative, Iranian media reported on Friday.
They quoted foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini as saying: "This shameful and provocative act aims at carrying the crises and internal problems outside the (Israeli) frontiers and creating insecurity in the region."
Iran is Syria's main regional ally, and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki phoned his Syrian counterpart, Walid Muallem, to express Tehran's solidarity with Damascus.
Syria said on Thursday that its air defences opened fire on Israeli warplanes which had violated its airspace at dawn that day.
"Enemy Israeli planes penetrated Syrian airspace from the Mediterranean Sea heading towards the northeast, breaking the sound barrier," a Syrian army spokesman told the official SANA news agency.
"Our air defences repulsed them and forced them to leave... after the Israeli planes dropped munitions, without causing human or material loss," he said, without giving further information on what exactly was dropped.
The Jewish state refused any comment.
sgh/jfb/kir
09/07/2007 10:35 GMT