Bashar al-Assad has stated United Nations envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan to cease 16 months of bloodshed was being blocked by countries, including Turkey and Saudi Arabia, supplying back up for “terrorists.”
“We know that [Annan] is coming up against infinite obstructions, but his plan shouldn’t be let to break down, it’s a very good plan,” Assad stated Das Erste in an interview. “The greatest obstruction is that many countries don’t wish this plan to succeed, and so they provide political support and keep on offering the terrorists in Syria with arms and money,” Assad stated, in accordance with a transcript in German of the interview led in English on July 5 and scheduled for broadcast later on Sunday.
Assad charged Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar of offering weapons to the opposition battlers and Turkey of applying logistic assistance to smuggle in supplies. The U.S. Provided political support, he added. “If I do not have prove, real evidence, I tell you what the indications are. Those countries declare in public that they affirm those terrorists, primarily the minister of foreign affairs of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and his counterpart in Qatar. They declare publicly that they support them. This is concerning the armings. Turkey, I believe, provides logistical support for smuggling.”
Annan came in Damascus on Sunday for talks with Assad, a day after admitting that his peace plan had so far failed to cease sixteen months of bloodshed.
Assad told most of victims during the conflict had been his supporters, instead of his opponents on whom he has applied shelling and armored combat vehicle fire. “The absolute majority of them are people supporting the government and a big part of the rest are entirely innocent people killed by different groups in Syria,” he told.
Among those groups were al-Qaeda and other radical Islamists, Assad told. His forces have seized dozens of al-Qaeda fighters, some from Tunisia and Libya, he added.
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has urged Sunni Muslim militants to get together for the battle against Assad, whose Shiite-rooted minority Alawite sect dominates the army and security forces.
