ASSAD: WE’RE DEFEATING TERRORISTS

Syrian president says war’s worst ‘is behind us’

DAMASCUS

SYRIA’S President Bashar al-Assad has said the worst of his country’s sixyear war “is behind us” after a string of advances by his forces backed by key ally Russia.

In recent months, Assad’s troops and allied fighters have retaken territory across the country, including recapturing all of Aleppo city in December after years of fighting.

“Things now are moving in the right direction, which is a better direction, because we are defeating the terrorists,” he said in an interview in Damascus with the India-based WION television station.

“Unless the West and other countries and their allies, their puppets, support those extremists in... a very massive way, I’m sure the worst is behind us.”

The interview was released by the Syrian presidency on Saturday.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with demonstrations against Assad’s government.

The Syrian leader repeated previous denials of responsibility for an alleged chemical weapons attack in April on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun.

And he said a peace initiative agreed by his allies Russia and Iran, and rebel backer Turkey, in the Kazakh capital Astana last month was a promising idea.

“Until this moment we haven’t had any real political initiative that could produce something, although Astana has achieved, let’s say, partial results through the recent de-escalation areas in Syria, which was positive,” he said. The agreement seeks to set up four areas in Syria where fighting will stop. AFP