kayhan.ir

News ID: 72744
Publish Date : 15 November 2019 - 22:49
President Assad:

Armed Resistance Will Force U.S. Troops Out




DAMASCUS (Dispatches) -- Syrian President Bashar Assad said in remarks broadcast Friday that the American presence in Syria will lead to armed "resistance” that will eventually force the U.S. troops to leave his country.
Assad spoke in an interview with Russia24 TV and Rossiya Segodnya news agency saying Americans should remember the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that "Syria will not be an exception.”
U.S. officials said this week that Washington will leave about 600 troops in Syria. That followed President Donald Trump’s decision last month to withdraw the bulk of roughly 1,000 American troops from Syria, drawing bipartisan condemnation.
Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Trump that he intended to carry out an operation to clear the Turkey-Syria border of Syrian Kurdish fighters who fought side-by-side with U.S. troops in northeast Syria. Ankara considers the Syrian Kurdish fighters terrorists linked to a Kurdish insurgency within Turkey.
After Turkey began an invasion on Oct. 9, capturing dozens of Syrian towns and villages and displacing tens of thousands of people, Kurdish fighters then turned to the Syrian government for protection.
Assad subsequently sent troops to areas near the Turkish border, under an agreement reached between Russia and Turkey.
"I have always said that an occupier cannot occupy a piece of land without having agents in that country, because it would be difficult for them to live in a completely hostile environment,” Assad said.
"The American presence in Syria will generate a military resistance which will exact losses among the Americans, and consequently force them to leave,” said Assad.
"Of course, we are not contemplating a Russian-American confrontation, this is self-evident, and it doesn’t serve neither our interests, nor the Russians nor international stability,” he said. "It is dangerous.”
Under another deal reached last month between Turkey and Russia, Syrian Kurdish forces withdrew from almost the entire northeastern border from the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border.
Russian and Syrian government forces began moving immediately to ensure the Kurdish fighters pull back 30 kilometers from the border, and Turkish and Russian troops began joint patrols in the area.
Assad said the Russian-Turkish agreement regarding the withdrawal of Kurdish SDF militants must be implemented.
"They need to withdraw because they provided the Turks with the pretext to implement their plan, which they have been dreaming of since the beginning of the war” in Syria eight years ago, Assad said.
He also criticized Kurdish groups seeking to set up an autonomous region inside Syria. "We shall never accept any separatist propositions under any circumstances,” he said.
Syrian government forces started deploying Thursday in areas close to the Turkish border in the country’s northeast as part of an agreement reached between Russia and Turkey, state media reported.
News agency SANA said troops were deploying between the towns of Jawadiyeh and Malkiyeh, also known as Derik, while state-run TV said Syrian border guards will be positioned at six points near to the frontier.
SANA reported that since Turkey began its invasion of northern Syria on October 9, some 19,776 families have been displaced from the northern countryside of Hasakeh province. It added that services are being provided to the displaced in 48 housing shelters.
Also Thursday, President Assad said there are possibilities that a former British army officer who helped found the White Helmets volunteer organization in Syria was killed in Turkey.
Turkish officials had said that the death of James Le Mesurier in Istanbul this week is under investigation. Le Mesurier was the founder and CEO of May Day Rescue, which founded and trained the White Helmets.
He was 48 and had moved to Turkey with his wife four years ago, according to Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency. Le Mesurier’s body was found near his home in the Beyoglu district by worshipers on their way to a mosque, the agency reported.
"Maybe the founder of the White Helmets was planning to write a book about his life. This is unacceptable,” Assad said in an interview with Russia’s state-owned Russia 24. "These are possibilities, but they are big possibilities.”
Assad added that "there is a big possibility that Turkish intelligence carried out this act at the orders of foreign agencies. I repeat these are possibilities.”