By Vestnik Kavkaza
The issue of the early retirement of the current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not on the agenda, the head of the Syrian Foreign Ministry, Walid Muallem, said over the weekend. "Assad will be the legitimate president of Syria at the presidential elections to be held in mid-2014. Nobody should doubt it,” Muallem said, affirming that the Syrian government is ready to take part in the "Geneva-2" conference for a peaceful settlement and to conduct dialogue with the opposition.
Nevertheless, the U.S. continues to insist on Assad’s resignation. "He should resign", said the United States National Security Advisor Susan Rice. In her view, Assad "has lost legitimacy" by being responsible for the deaths of peaceful Syrian citizens, including those resulting from the use of poisonous substances in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21.
However, expressing the belief that the future of Syria cannot be associated with Assad , Rice acknowledged that in the UN Security Council resolution adopted in support of the plan of liquidation of chemical weapons in Syria "Assad is not discussed as a person".
One way or another, the U.S. will work with other countries to destroy the Syrian toxic substances in accordance with the plan of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the Security Council resolution, but at the same time it will seek the resignation of Assad , supporting the "moderate group" of the Syrian opposition . Washington still admit the possibility of military action in Syria unilaterally.
In Moscow, this scenario is considered dangerous not only for the Middle East, but also for Europe. "We had a meeting with the Europeans, the European political scientists. We say them all the time: think about what you are doing. This is not just a short-sighted policy. This is a policy that will lead you to dire consequences”, Veniamin Popov, director of the Center for Partnership of Civilizations of Institute of International Studies of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), said. Have you learned the lesson of Libya?. Libya is on the brink of collapse in practice. It is not known what will happen to the country. But another state – Mali – has disintegrated. Iraq disintegrates. In Africa, now, see, there's this Kenyan episode that has shown that such a powerful center of extremism is created, and they will kill primarily Westerners, they will kill Israelis. It's understandable. What are you doing? Where are you going? Your political figures think that somehow it is possible to tame these terrorists, these extremists, these terrible people. Look, even the Western press considers the number of the Syrian opposition to be about 100,000 people. You will arm them. What's next?”
“Perhaps soon, too, you will say, you know, that there were some mistakes, as in Iraq, that you made a mistake with weapons of mass destruction”, Popov predicts. “They seem to make the same mistake. I wonder what the reaction of the Europeans was: "Yes, you know, we also try to do this, but we support democracy and reforms". I would say here that Assad also implements reforms supported by 60 % of the population. The answer of the head of the European Centre for International Relations was very interesting: look, the situation is changing. It does not change quickly. But look at the British Parliament, the most pro-American one, which refused to support the prime minister. He said the following sentence: you know, I think France will be the next, the French president. It is possible, but that does not help”.
According to Popov, gradually the understanding of the real situation in Syria is coming to the West, but too slowly: "There are too high short-term, tactical interests of certain groups, especially the ruling elite. But I still think that our very skillful diplomacy has led to the fact that after all now in New York we will be able to agree on the text of the resolution on Syria that chemical weapons is put under control, without any reference to article 7 - we have clearly told the Americans that we will never let the same resolution as on Libya be adopted. As an argument in discussions with the Americans, we say: of course, there will not be any immediate peace on Syrian soil. But first, at least we should reach the ceasefire. Well, 50% of the opposition maybe will accept compromises of some kind, etc. And what about the rest? We know that they are all based in Turkey. Qatar and Saudi Arabia help them giving them a lot of money. You should work with them somehow”.
Meanwhile, the president of Syria said he did not intend to leave his post. "A captain do not leave his ship during a storm. My task to bring it to port, instead of leaving", Bashar al-Assad said in an interview to Italian news channel RaiNews24. According to Assad, the Syrian government is not going to negotiate with terrorists: "If the rebels are armed, this is not the opposition, these are terrorists . And we do not enter into negotiations with the terrorists, members of the "Al -Qaeda" and their supporters , as well as those who try to implement military intervention in Syria. “The Syrian government is theoretically ready to participate in the international conference "Geneva-2", but the level of representation will be determined only after the verification of criteria and the context of the conference. According to Assad, "the majority of European countries take the line of the U.S. policy towards other states, and when there is a problem or there are differences, they just drop off the relationship. The EU allegedly provides its help, but in fact it announces an embargo on Syria". Meanwhile, the Syrian president sees a positive signal in the intention of rapprochement between Iran and the United States". If the U.S. is sincere in its intention to get close to Iran, the results may be very positive, not only for resolving the Syrian crisis, but also for resolving all the other problems of the region".
For details, see “Vladimir Mesamed : "The difference between the approaches of Iranian conservatives and Rouhani is not seen".
