Syria to West: Accept that Al-Assad is Here To Stay

Local Editor

Syrian envoy to the United Nations says it's time for the United States and other Western powers to accept that President Bashar al-Assad is here to stay, and to abandon what he suggested was a failed strategy of trying to split the Middle East into sectarian enclaves.

Speaking on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Syrian war, the long-serving UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari said the president was ready to work with the United States and others to combat terrorism in the Middle East.

"We don't want any vacuum in the country that would create chaos such as happened in Libya and Iraq and ... Afghanistan," he said. "President al-Assad can deliver because he is a strong president. He rules over a strong institution, which is the Syrian army. He has resisted pressure for four years."

"He is the man who can deliver any solution," he added.

"We have been open for cooperation [with the US]," Jaafari said. "They don't want it."
US officials at the United Nations did not have an immediate comment on Jaafari's latest statements.

The ambassador insisted that keeping al-Assad was the only path to peace and unity.
He further stated that "many European delegations" had visited Damascus to ask for strengthened anti-terrorism cooperation, without specifying which countries.

"We are telling everyone ... if you want this cooperation to be fruitful you need to get back to Syria, to reopen your embassies."

Indicating that Damascus wants al-Assad restored to international political legitimacy in exchange for security cooperation, Jaafari said that "the benefit of such cooperation should be mutual ... not only unilateral."

He blasted US President Barack Obama's strategy of training and arming what he described as "so-called moderate" rebels, saying it had only served to deliver weapons into the hands of "ISIL".

"This is not a Syrian conflict," Jaafari said.
"It is an international terror war waged against the Syrian government and the Syrian people," he added, referring to the tens of thousands of foreign fighters who have joined "ISIL" and other extremist groups in the country.

Source: News agencies, Edited by website team