Assad: Anti-ISIS Coalition
Doesn’t Want to Get Rid of Islamic State
Completely
By RT
March 27, 2015 "ICH"
- "RT"
- The alliance of 60 countries
declaring plans to finish off the Islamic
State is not serious, Syrian President
Bashar Assad told Russian media. Some of its
members would prefer to retain the terrorist
force to blackmail different countries, he
said.The rate of
airstrikes conducted by the anti-ISIS
coalition member states, some of which are
“rich and advanced,” is only about
10 raids a day on the territory of both
Syria and Iraq, Assad said in an interview
published Friday.
“The Syrian Air Force,
which is very small in comparison to this
coalition, conducts in a single day many
times the number of the airstrikes conducted
by a coalition which includes 60 countries,”
Assad said.
“This doesn’t make
sense. This shows the lack of seriousness,”
said Syria’s president. “They don’t want
to get rid of ISIS completely.”
“There is no serious
effort to fight terrorism, and what is being
achieved by the Syrian forces on the ground
equals in one day what is being achieved by
these states in weeks,”
Assad said. “An anti-terrorist coalition
cannot consist of countries which are
themselves supporters of terrorism.”
Peacekeepers in Syria would mean
recognition of Islamic State’
Moreover, he warned that
the decision to send peacekeepers into Syria
is unacceptable and could have dangerous
consequences. If implemented, the move would
mean recognizing Islamic State.
“The peacekeeping
force is usually based between countries at
war with each other. And when someone talks
about sending peacekeepers to deal with IS,
that acknowledges IS as a state. Such
rhetoric is unacceptable and dangerous,”
Assad said.
he Syrian president said
the West does not have a political solution
to the crisis in Syria, claiming it is only
interested in destroying the government.
“They want to turn us
into puppets. I do not think that the West
has a political solution. It does not want
one. When I say the West, I am primarily
referring to the US, France, the UK. Other
countries are secondary.”
To put an end to the
ongoing armed conflict in Syria between the
government troops and international
militants, such countries as Turkey, Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, and some European countries
should stop arming the terrorists, the
Syrian president said.
‘Syria not in contact with US’
The Syrian president told
Russian journalists that Damascus has no
direct contact with the US and is not
involved in any discussions.
“Certain ideas get
passed down through third parties, but that
cannot be considered as serious dialogue,”
Assad said, adding that the only option for
his country is to wait for American policies
to change.
According to the leader’s
point of view, there are two political camps
in the US – a peace-leaning one and a more
radical, aggressive one. The former is
“a minority,” while the latter calls
all the shots in foreign policy.
The warmongers in the
second camp fully support aggressive ideas
such as direct US military involvement in
Syria and Iraq, as well as sending weapons
to Ukraine.
“There is a connection
between the Syrian crisis and what is
happening in Ukraine. Firstly, because both
countries are important for Russia.
Secondly, because there is a goal in both
cases to weaken Russia and create puppet
states,” Assad
told Russian reporters.
'Syria welcomes Russian naval base
expansion’
When asked about the
Russian naval facility in the Syrian port of
Tartus, Assad said that his government would
support the idea of reviving and expanding
it into a military base, should Moscow seek
such an option.
“We welcome the
expansion of Russian presence in [the]
eastern Mediterranean, especially near our
shores and in our ports,”
he said.
The naval facility in
Tartus was constructed during the Soviet era
and was mainly used for repairing and
resupplying Russian warships in the
Mediterranean. Once the Syrian crisis
escalated, all Russian military personnel
were withdrawn from the facility.
Assad stressed that
Russia’s presence provided a certain sense
of balance in the region. He added that in
the past, the more visible Moscow’s
influence was in the region, the more stable
the area became.
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