24/12/2013 09:56
Western leaders act according to their selfish interests – Assad
Western leaders "behave with duplicity and act according to their selfish interests, without understanding the reality or nature..." of the Syrian conflict, Syrian President Bashar Assad has said, according to the Voice of Russia.
Bashar Assad also said on Monday his country is being confronted with a major offensive by Islamist extremists.
"The country is facing a takfiri ideology," Assad said, using a term for Sunni Muslim extremists.
"This is terrorism without limits, an international scourge that could strike anywhere and anytime," he said, quoted by the official SANA news agency.
Assad made the remarks while receiving what SANA said was a delegation of "academics, researchers and activists" from Australia who had came to express "solidarity" with his government.
The president also criticised Western leaders, who "behave with duplicity and act according to their selfish interests, without understanding the reality or nature..." of the Syrian conflict.
The West has started to admit that Bashar Assad running Syria is not as dangerous as terrorists would be if they were take over control the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview.
"Both in private conversations and public comments, some western politicians have started voicing their thoughts; given that Jihadists and terrorists, who are building up their influence in Syria, occupying territories, immediately introducing Sharia law after it, massacring minorities and burning people alive, just because they are adherents to a different faith, Bashar Assad being the leader of Syria is a lesser threat for the country than terrorists taking it over," the Russian Foreign Minister stated.