Jun 19, 2010
DAMASCUS, (SANA)-President Bashar al-Assad underlined that the Israeli aggression on the Freedom Flotilla has destroyed any chance for peace in the near future and proved that the Israeli current government is a pyromaniac government and we cannot achieve peace with such government.
In an interview with BBC TV station broadcast Thursday, President al-Assad said the Israelis attacked a Turkish aid. The Turks never attacked Israel, never smuggled weapons, and never did anything harmful to Israel. They only worked for peace, especially during the last few years and they were the only mediator in the meantime.
"The Middle East is passing through a stage of change… Syria has been working for avoiding the outbreak of a regional war," President al-Assad said, ruling out any peace agreement in the near future unless the Israeli government changes its behavior.
"We don't have an Israeli partner for peace, we know this even when we went to peace we never believed we have a partner, we have to try .In peace we keep trying. But with this government, it is something different from any previous Israeli government," President al-Assad added.
The President considered that the Israeli aggression on the Freedom Flotilla returned the danger of a war in the region…"but realistically we have this danger before the raid because we have many other evidences about the intentions of this government, about the intentions towards peace, about the intentions towards the Palestinians, the intentions to kill Palestinians; this is enough to talk about danger of having war in the region."
President al-Assad added "as I said previously, if you don’t have peace, you will have war someday, when? Nobody knows. But when you will have war, it will start suddenly. We cannot expect or read exactly when and how. So, when you don’t have peace you have to expect war everyday and this is very dangerous."
"We are not under the patronage of any country in this world… even the United States can't force Syria to do what's against our convictions and against our interests," the President said, underlining continuation in offering political support to resistance to liberate the occupied Arab territories.
On stability in the region, President al-Assad said "the US is contradicting itself… when they talk about stability in the region and they want to reach the stability through having bad relations between countries of the region."
As for the most positive things in the region, President al-Assad said that the most positive thing is that we've learned our lessons as countries, as governments and as people, so we think that we have to take things into our own hands. In the past, countries of the region were depending on others in solving their problems.
On relations with Iran and the possibility of an Israeli war against it, President al-Assad said "we don't need any war whoever starts that war, this is first… second, I don't believe that Iran wants war… we have alliance, it means we have dialogue… Syria wants good relations with all countries as these relations are not against our interests."
English Bulletin
