Arab League lacks legitimacy, says Syrian President Assad

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said the Arab League ‘lacks legitimacy’ as it gave Syria’s seat to the Western-backed opposition coalition.

“The Arab League lacks legitimacy. It’s a league that represents the Arab states, not the Arab people, so it can’t grant or retract legitimacy,” Assad said in an interview with the Turkish media published on the Syrian presidency’s Facebook page on Thursday.

On March 26, the Arab League handed Syria’s seat to the so-called National Coalition during a two-day summit held in the Qatari capital, Doha.

The Arab League also authorized its member states to send all the means of what it called self-defense, including weapons, to the foreign-sponsored militant groups inside Syria.

President Assad also stated, “Real legitimacy is not accorded by organizations or foreign officials or other country… legitimacy is that which is granted by the people. All these theatrics have no value in our eyes.”

Turkey’s Ulusal television and Aydinlik newspaper reportedly conducted the interview with Assad on April 2. It is scheduled to be aired in full later on Friday.

In other extracts of the interview published on Wednesday, the Syrian president accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of not having said “a single word of truth since the beginning of the crisis in Syria.”

Damascus says Ankara has been playing a key role in fueling the turmoil in Syria by financing, training and arming the militants since violence erupted in the country in March 2011.