2016 - BBC World News - Syria's Assad Vows to Retake Entire Country from Rebels & I.S. - 12/2/16
(
BBC News, 11 Feb 2016) -
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said that he intends to retake "the whole country" from rebel forces.
In a rare interview, he told
AFP news agency that defeating the groups ranged against him could take some time due to the involvement of regional powers.
World powers have agreed to push for a cessation of hostilities in a week's time.
The UN says it hopes to start delivering aid to some besieged areas in
Syria within the next 24 hours.
Mr Assad expressed support for
peace talks but said negotiations did not mean "we stop fighting terrorism".
More than
250,000 people have been killed and some 11 million displaced in almost five years of fighting in Syria.
Some
Syrian cities have been cut off from humanitarian aid for over a year because of fighting. About 13.5 million people are in need of aid, the UN says.
Mr Assad was speaking in Damascus on Thursday, ahead of the deal on the cessation of hostilities that was agreed in
Munich late on Thursday night.
In a wide-ranging interview,
President Assad spoke about:
The government offensive on
Aleppo: He said it was to sever the rebels' supply route from
Turkey
UN accusations of war crimes: He said recent claims against his government were "politicised"
Syrians seeking asylum in
Europe: Mr Assad blamed Europe's support for "terrorists" for the crisis
He said government forces would try to retake all of Syria "without any hesitation", but that the involvement of regional powers meant that "the solution will take a long time and will incur a heavy price".
Syrian government forces, backed by
Russian air strikes, have almost encircled rebels in parts of the northern city of Aleppo and cut off their main supply route from the
Turkish border.
Mr Assad told
AFP that if all rebel supply routes from Turkey,
Jordan and
Iraq were cut, the country's "problem" could be solved in less than a year.
Mr Assad rejected recent accusations by the UN that his government was guilty of war crimes.
Earlier this month, UN human rights investigators said the Syrian government had carried out a state policy of extermination against thousands of detainees.
In a report for the
UN Human Rights Council, they accused the Syrian government of crimes against humanity. The report also said government and rebel forces had committed possible war crimes.
But Mr Assad called the accusations "politicised" and said the investigators had provided no evidence.
Tentative peace talks were held in
Geneva earlier this month and have been "paused" until
25 February.
Mr Assad said he "fully believed in negotiations and in political action since the beginning of the crisis."
"However, if we negotiate, it does not mean that we stop fighting terrorism. The two tracks are inevitable in Syria," he said.
He also told AFP he believed there was a risk that
Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which both back
Syrian rebel forces, would intervene militarily in Syria.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the fighting around Aleppo, raising fears of a humanitarian crisis.
Many have headed to the Turkish border but have not been allowed to cross.
Instead, Turkey says it will support the refugees on the Syrian side of the border.
Both
Turkey and the European Union fear those displaced could add to the hundreds of thousands making the often perilous journey to Europe to seek asylum.
Mr Assad said
European governments had caused the migration crisis "by giving cover to terrorists in the beginning and through sanctions imposed on Syria".
"I would like to ask every person who left Syria to come back," he said. "They would ask 'why should I come back? Has terrorism stopped?'."
Meanwhile, a new UN task force set up to co-ordinate aid distributions is expected to convene in Geneva later on Friday.
"The UN system has been geared to deliver this aid all along, especially to besieged areas, and that's precisely what's going to be discussed today: how to start, and when to start," UN spokesman
Ahmad Fawzi said.
"We hope to start as early as tomorrow, immediately after the meeting, decisions will be taken to roll the aid in, especially to besieged areas that need it", he added.
Riad Hijab, co-ordinator of Syria's main opposition bloc, told the
BBC's Newsnight programme that to announce a cessation of hostilities before making progress in the political process "is not realistic, objective or logical".
"It only satisfies the Russian demand to preserve gains by Russian and
Iranian forces through their
scorched-earth policy against rebels in territories under their control," he said.
Source:
http://www
.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35561845
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