Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the United States is not committed to a ceasefire in Syria, according to an interview published Thursday by state-run news agency SANA.
“I believe that the United States is not genuine regarding having a cessation of violence in Syria,” he said.
“We announced that we are ready to be committed to any halt of operations, or if you want to call it ceasefire, but it’s not about Syria or Russia; it’s about the United States and the terrorist groups that have been affiliated to ISIS and al-Nusra and Al Qaeda, and to the United States and to Turkey and to Saudi Arabia,” Assad said.
Assad insisted that neither Syria nor Russia is responsible for an attack on a UN aid convoy and warehouse that killed 12 aid workers near Aleppo on Monday and called US accusations “lies.”
“It has never happened before, so why to happen now, either by the Russians or the Syrians? No, it’s a claim. And regarding the claim of the White House yesterday, accusing either the Syrians or the Russians. In that regard, I would say whatever the American officials said about the conflicts in Syria in general has no credibility. Whatever they say, it’s just lies,” Assad said.
Assad said he believed the US-led coalition airstrike against a Syrian army base that killed at least 62 soldiers on Saturday was a deliberate act.
“It’s not [an accident], because it wasn’t an accident by one airplane for once, let’s say. It was four airplanes that kept attacking the position of the Syrian troops for nearly one hour, or a little bit more than one hour. You don’t commit a mistake for more than one hour,” he said.
“ISIS militants attacked right away after the American strike. How could they know that the Americans are going to attack that position in order to gather their militants to attack right away and to capture it one hour after the strike? So it was definitely intentional, not unintentional as they claimed.”
Assad also denied that his troops were blocking aid from reaching besieged areas of Aleppo.
“If there’s really a siege around the city of Aleppo, people would have been dead by now. This is first. Second, more importantly, they’ve been shelling the neighboring areas and the positions of the Syrian Army for years, non-stop shelling of mortars and different kinds of lethal bombs. How could they be starving while at the same time they can have armaments? How can we prevent the food and the medical aid from reaching that area and we cannot stop the armaments form reaching that area, which is not logical?” he said.
Assad also said he did not believe there could be a joint US-Russian military partnership against militants.
“The United States doesn’t have the will to work against al-Nusra or even ISIS, because they believe that this is a card they can use for their own agenda. If they attack al-Nusra or ISIS, they will lose a very important card regarding the situation in Syria. So, I don’t believe the United States will be ready to join Russia in fighting terrorists in Syria,” he said.
On the upcoming US election and the possible impact of a new US president on his regime, Assad said that what candidates say during their campaign differs from what they do in office.
Assad said, “As we see now the American officials, they say something in the morning and they do the opposite in the evening. So, you cannot judge those people according to what they say. You cannot take them at their words, to be frank. We don’t listen to their statements, we don’t care about it, we don’t believe it. We have to wait till they become presidents, we have to watch their policy and their actions and their behaviors.”
