Syrian President Bashar Assad, in an exclusive interview with Yahoo News, rejected President Trump’s idea to create “safe zones” inside Syria as “not a realistic idea at all.” He said he could see a role for American troops to fight the Islamic State in Syria, but only with his government’s approval and as part of a “rapprochement” with Russia.
“So, if you want to start genuinely as United States to [defeat the Islamic State] it must be through the Syrian government,” said Assad, when asked about reports that Trump has directed the Pentagon to develop new plans to destroy the Islamic State that could include the deployment of more U.S. special forces troops and Apache helicopters inside Syria.
“We are here, we are the Syrians. We own this country as Syrians, nobody else,” he added. “So, you cannot defeat the terrorism without cooperation with the people and the government of any country.”
Assad’s comments during a 34-minute interview reflected his increasingly emboldened stance since Russian airstrikes helped drive rebels from eastern Aleppo, turning the tide in the country’s six-year-old civil war. He acknowledged regularly consulting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, and demanded that the U.S. lift economic sanctions against Syria as a first step to working with his military and Moscow to defeat terrorists.
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