Politics
08:37, 21-Aug-2017
Syrian president Assad says Western plot has been foiled
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday that Syria has paid a high price for the deep and long-running conflict. He said his country had foiled Western designs to topple him but his army had not yet won the fight to end Syria’s six-year-old insurgency.
In a televised address, Assad said that even though there were signs of victory after six-and-a-half years of civil war, the “battle continues, and where we go later and it becomes possible to talk about victory, that’s a different matter.”
Assad’s comments come as his troops gain ground, and many countries have ceased calling for him to step down. In his speech, he rejected any security cooperation or reopening of embassies in Damascus, before those countries cut relations with opposition groups.
He said recent deals to de-escalate violence in Syria have helped reduce the bloodletting. But he also vowed not to give the opposition anything it could not achieve through war.