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DPA
Damascus/Rome
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lashed out at Europe on Monday and vowed that Syria will emerge from war stronger than it was before, in an interview that caused controversy between Damascus and Italian public television RAI.
“The situation is much, much better, as we learned so many lessons from this war and I think the future of Syria is promising; we are going to come out of this war stronger,” Al-Assad added.
He accused Europe of being behind the instability in his country.
“It’s a simple question: because of terrorism that’s being supported by Europe - and of course the United States and Turkey and others - but Europe was the main player in creating chaos in Syria,” he said.
RAI was reluctant to broadcast the exclusive interview, saying that Monica Maggioni, a former Middle East correspondent and RAI chairwoman, secured the interview, but no RAI news programme or channel has so far agreed to run it.
The interview was recorded on November 26 and was scheduled to air simultaneously on December 2 on the RaiNews24 news channel and Syrian national media outlets, but the Italians asked to push back the date several times, the Syrian presidency said.
RAI requested delaying the broadcast without offering a new date for airing it nor an explanation, said the presidency, describing the delay as “another example of Western attempts to hide the truth on the situation in Syria.” The interview was broadcast on Syrian television.
After it was aired in Syria, RAI said it would itself release the interview on its online channel Raiplay.
In the interview, al-Assad stressed that there was no sectarian war in the country.
“There was no sectarian war, there was no ethnical war, there was no political war; it was terrorists supported by outside powers, they have money and armaments, and they occupy those areas,” he said.
Al-Assad reiterated his country’s denial of using chemical weapons during the uprising which started in Syria in 2011 and accused the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of falsifying reports.
Activists and world powers have accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons against its opponents and civilians; Syria has repeatedly rejected the allegations and insists videos shared by activists are fake.
“That’s what the OPCW organisation did - they faked and falsified the report, just because the Americans wanted them to do so,” he said.
In November, the OPCW said that it was set to produce in the next few months a report identifying the culprits of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. The OPCW previously said its analysis provided reasonable grounds that toxic chemicals had been used in attacks in Syria.
In March, the UN Human Rights Council blamed al-Assad’s government for 32 of the 37 publicly reported instances of the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Damascus/Rome
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lashed out at Europe on Monday and vowed that Syria will emerge from war stronger than it was before, in an interview that caused controversy between Damascus and Italian public television RAI.
“The situation is much, much better, as we learned so many lessons from this war and I think the future of Syria is promising; we are going to come out of this war stronger,” Al-Assad added.
He accused Europe of being behind the instability in his country.
“It’s a simple question: because of terrorism that’s being supported by Europe - and of course the United States and Turkey and others - but Europe was the main player in creating chaos in Syria,” he said.
RAI was reluctant to broadcast the exclusive interview, saying that Monica Maggioni, a former Middle East correspondent and RAI chairwoman, secured the interview, but no RAI news programme or channel has so far agreed to run it.
The interview was recorded on November 26 and was scheduled to air simultaneously on December 2 on the RaiNews24 news channel and Syrian national media outlets, but the Italians asked to push back the date several times, the Syrian presidency said.
RAI requested delaying the broadcast without offering a new date for airing it nor an explanation, said the presidency, describing the delay as “another example of Western attempts to hide the truth on the situation in Syria.” The interview was broadcast on Syrian television.
After it was aired in Syria, RAI said it would itself release the interview on its online channel Raiplay.
In the interview, al-Assad stressed that there was no sectarian war in the country.
“There was no sectarian war, there was no ethnical war, there was no political war; it was terrorists supported by outside powers, they have money and armaments, and they occupy those areas,” he said.
Al-Assad reiterated his country’s denial of using chemical weapons during the uprising which started in Syria in 2011 and accused the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of falsifying reports.
Activists and world powers have accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons against its opponents and civilians; Syria has repeatedly rejected the allegations and insists videos shared by activists are fake.
“That’s what the OPCW organisation did - they faked and falsified the report, just because the Americans wanted them to do so,” he said.
In November, the OPCW said that it was set to produce in the next few months a report identifying the culprits of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. The OPCW previously said its analysis provided reasonable grounds that toxic chemicals had been used in attacks in Syria.
In March, the UN Human Rights Council blamed al-Assad’s government for 32 of the 37 publicly reported instances of the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
