Assad rejects security cooperation with West
Rocket hits Damascus fair
Syrian President Bashar AlAssad yesterday refused any security cooperation with Western nations or the reopening of their embassies, until they cut ties with opposition and insurgent groups. Shortly after Assad gave his speech, a shell hit the first international fair in the country since the war began six years ago, killing and wounding several people.
Assad’s defiant comments come at a time when his troops and pro-Iranian militiamen are gaining ground across the country under the cover of Russian airstrikes. Many countries have ceased calling for him to step down. Speaking before dozens of Syrian diplomats in Damascus, Assad praised Russia, Iran, China and Lebanon’s Hezbollah for supporting his government during the conflict.
He said Syria will look east when it comes to political, economic and cultural relations. “The direct support of our friends, politically, economically and militarily, made our advance on the ground
greater and the losses of war less. Therefore, they are our partners in these achievements on the road to crush terrorism,” Assad said. “Let’s be clear. There will be no security cooperation nor opening of embassies or even a role for some countries that say that they want to play a role in ending the crisis in Syria before they clearly and frankly cut their relations with terrorism,” Assad said. “At that point maybe we can speak about opening embassies.”
Following months of steady military advances, Syria’s government has sought to portray itself as the victor in a war that is winding down, and is looking ahead to reconstruction. The Syrian president said his country’s economy is turning to growth again “at a very slow pace, although we are under an almost complete embargo”. The government had billed the international trade fair, which opened three days ago, as a “victory” and a sign of renewed confidence in the war-torn nation. The Damascus International Fair was once the leading event on Syria’s economic calendar but had not been held since shortly after the outbreak of the country’s war in March 2011.
The Mortar News in Damascus Facebook page, which tracks violence in the capital, said the shell hit the entrance of the fair, killing four people and wounding four others. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war, said six people, including two women, were killed and around a dozen more wounded in the rocket fire near the entrance to the fair.
A rescuer speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity confirmed the toll. A source at a hospital in Jaramana, an area southwest of the capital, told AFP he had seen dead and injured being evacuated from the scene. There was no confirmation of the toll from officials. But state television briefly carried a breaking news alert reporting the rocket fire and saying it had caused injuries, citing its reporters at the scene. The alert was removed shortly afterwards, and a reporter broadcasting live from the fair interviewed several officials who made no mention of the rocket fire or casualties.
“We were preparing to receive visitors when I heard an explosion...then I saw smoke to the side of the entrance to the exhibition hall,” 39-year-old Iyad Al-Jabiri, a Syrian working at a textile stand at the fair, told AFP. The fair opened on Thursday at the capital’s Exhibition City and is scheduled to last 10 days.
It was touted as a sign that work towards rebuilding Syria and revitalizing its ravaged economy was getting under way, despite the violence that continues in parts of the country.
While Damascus has been insulated from much of the worst violence of the country’s war, several key rebel enclaves remain in the Eastern Ghouta region outside the city. Fighters in the area have regularly fired rockets into the capital, and government warplanes have frequently carried out devastating raids across Eastern Ghouta. In recent weeks, much of the area has been quieter after the implementation in July of a “de-escalation zone” covering parts of Eastern Ghouta.
The trade fair dates back to 1954 but was last held in the summer of 2011, months after the eruption of protests against Assad’s government. Since then, the country has spiralled into a bloody civil war that has killed more than 330,000 people, displaced millions and devastated the economy. The fair is hosting firms from 23 countries that have maintained diplomatic relations with Damascus throughout the conflict. The United States and European countries, which maintain economic sanctions on the Assad regime, were not officially invited, although a handful of Western companies are attending on an individual basis.
Assad said that hardly a week passes without an attack in the West, referring to assaults carried out by IS supporters. “These facts are what forced them (the West) to change their stance,” Assad said.
He welcomed recent deals to de-escalate violence in Syria, but vowed not to give the opposition in politics what it failed to gain through arms.
The de-escalation zones in central, northern and southern Syria were proposed in a plan approved in May by Russia, Turkey and Iran in the Kazakh capital, Astana. The plan included a cessation of hostilities, a halt to Syrian government air raids over designated areas, and provisions for humanitarian aid access.
Despite that deal, Assad said Syrians don’t trust Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and that the Syrian leader does not consider him to be a guarantor. Erdogan’s government is a main backer of Syrian rebels, and sent troops into Syria a year ago to battle IS and to halt the advance of Kurdish forces. Those troops, and allied Syrian forces, now control a stretch of Syrian territory along the border. “Any Turkish citizen who is in Syria without permission from the Syrian government will be considered an occupier,” Assad said. — Agencies