<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Syria on Sunday said ally Iran acted in self-defence with a massive overnight attack on Israel that Tehran said was in retaliation for a deadly Israeli strike on Iran's consulate in Damascus.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; "><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Iran's response... is a legitimate right to self-defence" against Israel, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian by phone, according to a report carried by state news agency SANA.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mekdad also described the Iranian response as "appropriate", SANA added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Iran had vowed to avenge the strike on the consular section of its embassy in the Syrian capital on April 1 that killed seven Revolutionary Guards including two generals from the Quds Force, the Guards' foreign operations arm.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A separate statement Sunday from Syria's foreign ministry expressed Damascus's "solidarity with the Islamic republic of Iran" and emphasised its "condemnation of the Zionist aggression against the Iranian diplomatic premises".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tehran has also said its overnight attack on Israel was carried out in "self-defence".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Amir-Abdollahian inaugurated a new consulate in Damascus this week and accused the United States of approving the deadly strike. - AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/fas</div>