Cairo: Syrian President Bashar Al Assad said his government won’t fall and that dialogue alone is the way out of the 18-month uprising, Al Ahram Al Arabi reported.
In an interview at his office in Damascus, Al Assad told the Egyptian magazine that the Libyan model, where the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s intervention led to the toppling of long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi, won’t be repeated in Syria. He also lashed out at neighbouring Turkey and said the Gulf nations are financing and arming groups.
“They think that with their money, they can buy geography, history and a regional role,” Al Assad said.
Turkey, once a close ally, has “lost a lot” by siding with the opposition, the Syrian president said. “They’re now facing problems with the opposition,” he was quoted as saying. “Turkey is paying the price of policies that only” benefit the political group that runs the Turkish government.
Turkey’s relations with Syria collapsed when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan backed Syria’s rebels. That gave Kurdish militants more freedom to operate over a 911-kilometer border where Turkey and Syria had previously staged joint exercises. There are almost daily attacks on soldiers and police in the bloodiest phase of confrontation between Turkey and the militants in more than a decade.
Al Assad admitted to mistakes and corruption in the country, which he said the government is fighting, the magazine said.
