BEIRUT, June 17 (Itar-Tass) - Success of the Geneva-2 peace conference depends a lot on ‘whether weapons supplies and transportation of terrorist to Syria are stopped,’ President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview with Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Tuesday.
“If in Geneva it is possible to put an end to weapons smuggling and penetration of militants to Syria, it, we hope, will be a successful beginning of the settlement process and will cause lowering of the tension,” the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) quotes Assad as saying in the interview. He also warned “if the conflict in Syria is not stopped, it will spread to neighbouring countries, and the situation will aggravate in the entire region.”
“We shall go to Geneva and will have talks with the United States, France, the United Kingdom and their acolytes - Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as those who call themselves the opposition abroad are their servants,” the president continued. He said the countries supporting formation of terrorist units “impede organisation of the peace conference.” Damascus, he said, believes “the meeting in Geneva may become an important stage, which will start a dialogue.”
Syria’s government recognises as legal the opposition, which “does not take arms in hands and does not have anything with terror.”
“The opposition should have a political programme and a public support, which it may prove by participating in elections to the parliament and to local authorities. Presently, the Syrian government has representatives of the opposition, which has seats at the People’s council.”
Commenting on the West’s demand Assad should quit, the president said the decision of the kind in the current situation “would be equal to national treason.”