Agencies, Damascus :
Syrian President Bashar Assad, in an exclusive interview with Yahoo News, rejected President Trump’s idea to create “safe zones” inside Syria as “not a realistic idea at all.” He said he could see a role for American troops to fight the Islamic State in Syria, but only with his government’s approval and as part of a “rapprochement” with Russia.
“So, if you want to start genuinely as United States to [defeat the Islamic State] it must be through the Syrian government,” said Assad, when asked about reports that Trump has directed the Pentagon to develop new plans to destroy the Islamic State that could include the deployment of more U.S. special forces troops and Apache helicopters inside Syria.
“We are here, we are the Syrians. We own this country as Syrians, nobody else,” he added. “So, you cannot defeat the terrorism without cooperation with the people and the government of any country.”
Assad’s comments during a 34-minute interview reflected his increasingly emboldened stance since Russian airstrikes helped drive rebels from eastern Aleppo, turning the tide in the country’s six-year-old civil war. He acknowledged regularly consulting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and demanded that the U.S. lift economic sanctions against Syria as a first step to working with his military and Moscow to defeat terrorists.The interview turned contentious when Assad was questioned repeatedly about new allegations of torture and other human rights abuses by his government – allegations he dismissed as “lies” and part of a campaign by Amnesty International, the Persian Gulf states and even the U.S. FBI to “demonize the Syrian government.” The interview in Assad’s office was his first since President Trump took office. While he said he found Trump’s public statements about fighting terrorism “promising,” he was dismissive of the U.S. president’s recent assertion that he would “absolutely do safe zones in Syria for the people” endangered by the country’s fierce civil war.
“But actually, it won’t [protect civilians], it won’t,” Assad said. “Safe zones for the Syrians could only happen when you have stability and security, where you don’t have terrorists, where you don’t have [the] flow and support of those terrorists by the neighboring countries or by Western countries.
Syrian President Bashar Assad, in an exclusive interview with Yahoo News, rejected President Trump’s idea to create “safe zones” inside Syria as “not a realistic idea at all.” He said he could see a role for American troops to fight the Islamic State in Syria, but only with his government’s approval and as part of a “rapprochement” with Russia.
“So, if you want to start genuinely as United States to [defeat the Islamic State] it must be through the Syrian government,” said Assad, when asked about reports that Trump has directed the Pentagon to develop new plans to destroy the Islamic State that could include the deployment of more U.S. special forces troops and Apache helicopters inside Syria.
“We are here, we are the Syrians. We own this country as Syrians, nobody else,” he added. “So, you cannot defeat the terrorism without cooperation with the people and the government of any country.”
Assad’s comments during a 34-minute interview reflected his increasingly emboldened stance since Russian airstrikes helped drive rebels from eastern Aleppo, turning the tide in the country’s six-year-old civil war. He acknowledged regularly consulting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and demanded that the U.S. lift economic sanctions against Syria as a first step to working with his military and Moscow to defeat terrorists.The interview turned contentious when Assad was questioned repeatedly about new allegations of torture and other human rights abuses by his government – allegations he dismissed as “lies” and part of a campaign by Amnesty International, the Persian Gulf states and even the U.S. FBI to “demonize the Syrian government.” The interview in Assad’s office was his first since President Trump took office. While he said he found Trump’s public statements about fighting terrorism “promising,” he was dismissive of the U.S. president’s recent assertion that he would “absolutely do safe zones in Syria for the people” endangered by the country’s fierce civil war.
“But actually, it won’t [protect civilians], it won’t,” Assad said. “Safe zones for the Syrians could only happen when you have stability and security, where you don’t have terrorists, where you don’t have [the] flow and support of those terrorists by the neighboring countries or by Western countries.
