Al-Assad: Military Actions to End in A Year, National Reconciliation A Must

Local Editor

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, met on Monday the al-Baath Party's leaderships in Daraa, Sweida and Quneitra provinces on occasion of the 67th anniversary of the party foundation.

During the meeting, al-Assad stressed that Syria's southern provinces have formed, for decades, the first line of defense in the face of "Israel". "This explains the massive support provided by the "Israeli" enemy to terrorist groups that commit crimes against the people of these provinces and other Syrian citizens."

He further asserted the importance of continuing and bolstering the national reconciliation process, saying "when we are strong inside, all that happens or is plotted abroad is meaningless."
He stressed the need for citizens' concerns and issues to be at the forefront of the concerns of party members and for them to take initiative to ensure providing citizens' livelihood needs.

Meanwhile, a former Russian prime minister who recently met al-Assad said the Syrian president told him that much of the fighting in the country's civil war would be over by the end of the year.

According to Itar-Tass news agency, Sergei Stepashin, who served as prime minister in 1999 under then-President Boris Yeltsin and now heads a charitable organization, met al-Assad in Damascus last week during a visit to the Middle East, according to Russian news reports.

"To my question about how military issues were going, this is what al-Assad said: ‘This year the active phase of military action in Syria will be ended. After that we will have to shift to what we have been doing all the time - fighting terrorists'," state-run Itar-Tass quoted Stepashin as saying.

Stepashin said they had also discussed economic cooperation between Syria and Russia.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team