Last Updated: 1:18 PM, November 8, 2012
Posted: 11:39 AM, November 8, 2012
REUTERS Free Syrian Army members fire on a man they suspect to be from
the pro-government forces in this photo released today.
BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed defiantly to "live and die" in
Syria, saying in an interview broadcast Thursday that he will never flee his
country despite the bloody, 19-month-old uprising against him.
The broadcast comes two days after British Prime Minister David Cameron
suggested that Assad could be allowed safe passage out of the country if that
would guarantee an end to the civil war, which activists estimate has killed
more than 36,000 people.
"I am not a puppet, I was not made by the West for me to go to the West or
any other country," Assad, 47, said in the interview with the English-language
Russia Today TV. He spoke in English and excerpts of the interview were posted
on the station's website Thursday with an Arabic voiceover.
"I am Syrian, I am made in Syria, and I will live and die in Syria," he
said.
Assad also warned against foreign military intervention at a time when the
West is taking steps to boost the opposition.
"I don't think the West is headed in this direction. But if it does, nobody
can predict the consequences," he told the station. The full interview will be
broadcast on Friday, the station said.
The excerpts show Assad casually talking and later walking with RT's reporter
outside a house, wearing a gray suit and tie. It was not clear where the
interview took place.
The uprising against Assad's regime began as mostly peaceful protests in
March last year but quickly morphed into a civil war. The fighting has taken on
grim sectarian tones, with the predominantly Sunni rebels battling government
forces loyal to a regime dominated by minority Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite
Islam.
On Wednesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced his country will
deal directly with Syrian rebel military leaders. He spoke during a trip to
visit Syrian refugees in Jordan. Previously, Britain and the U.S. have
acknowledged contacts only with exile groups and political opposition figures —
some connected to rebel forces — inside Syria.
He called on the U.S. to join his country in doing more to shape the Syrian
opposition into a coherent force, saying the re-election of President Barack
Obama is an opportunity for the world to take stronger action to end the
deadlocked civil war.
Washington has been pressing for a new, more unified opposition leadership
that will minimize the role of exiles and better represent those risking their
lives on the front lines. The initiative was being discussed Thursday at an
opposition conference in the Qatari capital of Doha.
The meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of Qatar and Turkey, both
leading backers of the Syrian rebels, as well as Western diplomats and Arab
League chief Nabil Elaraby. On the table is a proposal to set up a new
leadership team that would become the conduit for international support to
rebel-held areas in Syria. The U.S. has suggested that the main group in exile,
the Syrian National Council, can no longer claim a key leadership role and must
make way for those representing activists inside Syria.
Under a revised plan, the SNC would receive 22 out 60 seats in the new group
and effectively be sidelined. The author of the plan, Syrian dissident Riad
Seif, and representatives of the SNC and other opposition groups met in a Doha
hotel to try to hammer out an agreement.
Seif said he expected a decision on his plan by Friday. He said he was "very
optimistic" it would win approval and that most Syrians would be satisfied with
the new leadership. Seif said the international community's promises to the new
group included setting up a fund worth billions of dollars and international
recognition.
Further down the road, the international community hopes for negotiations on
a political transition between the opposition and those in the Assad regime who
were not involved in bloodshed and corruption. The opposition has agreed to such
talks, in principle, but said it could take many more months of a war of
attrition before Assad is ready to leave Syria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose government has remained one of
Syria's most loyal and powerful allies, criticized the West for supporting the
opposition, saying foreign powers should try to force both sides to stop
fighting. Russia has shielded Damascus from strong international action at the
U.N. Security Council.
He said Moscow would not support any resolution that would threaten the
Syrian regime with sanctions. The remarks were posted on his ministry's website
Thursday.
"If their priority is, figuratively speaking, Assad's head, the supporters of
such approach must realize that the price for that will be lives of the Syrians,
not their own lives," Lavrov said. "Bashar Assad isn't going anywhere and will
never leave, no matter what they say. He can't be persuaded to take that
step."
Assad has rarely appeared in public since the revolt began in March 2011.
Last month, state TV showed him attending prayers for the Muslim holiday of Eid
al-Adha in Al-Afram Mosque in the Al-Muhajireen district of Damascus, sitting on
the floor and praying.
In several televised speeches this year, Assad has blamed the uprising on a
foreign plot to destroy Syria and accused rebels of being mercenaries of the
West and Gulf countries Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The daily death toll in the civil war has been averaging 100 people or more
recently, killed in clashes between rebels and troops, and in artillery shelling
and regime airstrikes on rebel-held areas.
At least 104 people were killed in fighting on Wednesday, according to the
Britain-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Most of the
dead — 31 people — were killed in the fighting between rebels and government
troops in the suburbs of Damascus as the rebels made a new push into the
capital, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the Observatory's chief.
The Observatory said it has received reports of fresh fighting in the
Damascus suburbs and in the neighborhood of Souseh in the capital on Thursday.
It also said there were heavy clashes in northern Idlib province and in Aleppo,
Syria's largest city which has been a major front in the civil war since the
summer.
Regime forces also battled opposition fighters trying to take control of a
region in the far northeastern corner of the country, Turkey's state-run agency
reported. Two people in the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar were wounded by
stray bullets from the fighting.
The clashes broke out in the town of Ras al-Ayn in al-Hasaka province in
northeastern Syria, a few hundred meters (yards) from Ceylanpinar, the Anadolu
Agency said.
The mayor for Ceylanpinar told The Associated Press that the rebels had taken
over the border crossing of Ras al-Ayn on Thursday. Ismail Aslan said in a phone
interview that the rebel flag was flying on a building across the Turkish
border. However, fierce fighting between rebels and government troops continued
around what Asalan said was an "intelligence building" on the Syrian side of the
border where the regime troops had retreated to.
Around 5,000 Syrians from Ras al-Ayn crossed into Ceylanpinar Thursday to
escape the fighting and at least 14 Syrians were being treated for injuries in
hospitals around the region, Aslan said.
More than 111,000 Syrians are being sheltered in refugee camps in Turkey.
Turkish authorities also inspected the cargo of a Syria-bound plane from
Armenia to make sure it was not carrying military equipment.
In Geneva, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, said the downward spiral in violence since the summer makes it impossible for the organization to cope with some of Syria's humanitarian needs. He also said there has been no "major progress" on gaining better access to prisoners.
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