Syrian President Bashar al-Assad opens up in rare interview

In a rare interview conducted with Argentina’s Clarin newspaper, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad opened to the unlikely possibility of brokering a political peace with the opposition, stressing he had no intention in stepping down what so ever.
The embattled leader said he was determined to run in Syria 2014 presidential elections, which he very much intend to win. He also suggested that despite their claims the opposition, led by the Free Syrian Army and their western backers had no real interest in peace, only seeking destruction.

It is not the first time that President Assad is challenging the opposition’s motives.

While Russia and the United States of America are said to be looking to broker a peace, it is unlikely their efforts will bare fruits since President Assad refuses to negotiate his departure from power.

Assad, who has been in power for 12 years since taking over from his father, said it was up to the Syrian people to decide “who should go and who should stay.” Election observers would have to come from “friendly countries like China and Russia,” he said; the West could not be trusted.

According to an article by interviewer Marcelo Cantelmi published on Clarin’s Web site Saturday, Assad struck a defiant tone throughout their conversation in his Damascus palace and appeared “severe” and “rigid.”

“We have made reforms, we changed the constitution, we changed laws, we annulled the state of emergency and announced a dialogue with political opposition forces, but the terrorism increased every day,” he told Cantelmi, according to a video of the interview posted on the Guardian’s Web site.

“One negotiates with political forces, but not with a terrorist who slits throats, kills and uses toxic gases that are chemical weapons,” Clarin quoted Assad as saying.

The United Nations has alleged that so far 80,000 had died in Syria as a result of the armed conflict. While President Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons against civilian population a recent report from a UN observer noted that evidences pointed to the contrary and that instead it was the Syrian Free Army which might be using such illegal weapons, trying to pin the blame on the Syrian regime.

President Assad told Clarin that “a captain does not flee his ship during the storm.”

Ha refuted reports that he was using excessive force, stressing that such a term was irrelevant when one was fighting terror in its homeland.