Alwaght- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad blamed some Western and regional states for supporting terrorists who have been wreaking havoc on the West Asian country since 2011.
“France, Britain, and the US, along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey are responsible for the war in Syria due to their support of the terrorism”, Al-Assad said in an interview with the Greek Kathimerini newspaper published on Thursday.
The Syrian president further blamed foreign intervention for the prolongation of the conflict in Syria, saying otherwise it would take “less than a year” to restore peace to the Arab country.
Assad referred to foreign support for extremist groups operating in the war-torn country as another factor for the persistence of the crisis, however, expressing hope that “we’re going to end this conflict and we’re going to re-unify Syria under the control of the government. When? I cannot answer. I hope it’s going to be soon.”
He further stressed that “any aggressor” and “any army … are all enemies as long as they came to Syria illegally.”
The Syrian president additionally denounced as “aggression” the ongoing Turkish operation in Syria's Kurdish-controlled region. “This is an occupation. Any single Turkish soldier on Syrian soil represents occupation,” he said.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Assad rejected the Western allegations about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government near the capital of Damascus as a “farce and a very primitive play” whose only goal is to “attack the Syrian army” after the defeat of terrorists.
