President Assad Blames US for Syria Truce Collapse
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Syrian President Bashar Assad rejected US accusations that Syrian or Russian planes struck an aid convoy in Aleppo or that his troops were preventing food from entering the city’s rebel-held eastern neighborhoods, blaming the US for the collapse of a ceasefire in the Arab country.
In an interview with The Associated Press in Damascus, Assad also said deadly US airstrikes on Syrian troops last week were intentional, dismissing American officials’ statements that they were an accident. Assad said the US lacked “the will” to join forces with Russia in fighting extremists.
He said his enemies alone were to blame for nearly six years of devastation across Syria, and while acknowledging some mistakes, he denied any excesses by his troops. He said the war was only likely to “drag on” because of continued external support for his opponents.
“When you have many external factors that you don’t control, it’s going to drag on and no one in this world can tell you when” the war will end, he said, adding that Syrians who fled the country could return within a few months if the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar stopped backing insurgents.
Syria has been gripped by civil war since March 2011 with various terrorist groups, including Daesh, currently controlling parts of it.
According to a report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.
