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Assad’s victory is starting point for society's consolidation - experts

ZAMYATINA Tamara 
The US Secretary of State John Kerry announced the election was useless with a zero result

MOSCOW, June 05. /ITAR-TASS/. Bashar Assad’s victory in Syria’s first contested presidential election on June 3 can become the starting point of a long journey towards national consent through a coalition government with the participation of the opposition, Russian experts believe.

In the final communique, the international observers recognized the election as legitimate. Among them were MPs from Russia, Iran, Brazil, Venezuela, North Korea, Tajikistan, the Philippines, Uganda, as well as delegates from Canada, the US, Ireland, Pakistan, Malaysia and Bahrein.

Meanwhile, the G7 summit communique released in Brussels on Wednesday denounces the election as “sham” and promises “no future for Assad in Syria”. The signatories expressed support for “commitment of the National Coalition and Free Syrian Army to uphold international law”.

The US Secretary of State John Kerry announced the election was useless with a zero result. Many politicians in Washington propose to expand support for the opposition, in particular with advanced surface-to-air missile system supplies.

Russian experts believe the White House still plans a military intervention.

“It was important for Russia to legitimize the regime in Syria that was the issue of heated international discussions. In the regions where the election did take place Bashar Assad gained more than 80%, thus putting an end to completely unfounded speculations he has no public support,” Duma member from the ruling United Russia party Vyacheslav Nikonov told ITAR-TASS.

The legislator believes Assad has cemented his position as a leader and obtained the people’s mandate to fight the threat of radical Islam.

“He is no ideal leader but Russia supports him to prevent Syria’s from splitting and turning into an uncontrollable hotbed of terrorism like Sudan or Afghanistan,” the politician said.

The newly elected president has a chance to establish a coalition government in order to stabilize state institutions’ operations, Nikonov believes. This government, he added, would surely include only the moderate opposition and not the militants supported by the West.

“Russia and the West still differ significantly over how to resolve the Syrian crisis. Washington still does not rule out a military intervention, though Damascus’s chemical weapons have been put under international control and is being eliminated according to the program,” Nikonov said. “The Russian authorities advocate creating a viable humanistic society in cooperation with partners from Europe and the US," he added.

The West’s position is to settle the crisis by force with all negative consequences for the world and the threat of terrorism sprawling from al Qaeda-linked groups, Europe being one of the regions to be possibly affected, believes Nikonov. The West had recently made plenty of mistakes in the Middle East and took the risk of falling in the same trap with Syria, he warned.

The election in Syria was necessary to show the world that the Syrian people support the course for independence and resistance to those forces that instigate aggression against it, believes the president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Lieutenant General, Leonid Ivashov.

"Given the May 25 election in Ukraine when cannons were thundering, while military aircraft were killing civilians, the West has no valid arguments to state the illegitimacy of the election in Syria. These are groundless statements,” he told ITAR-TASS.

“It was as early as 2011-2012 when Bashar Assad demonstrated his willingness to negotiate, inviting the Communists and other political forces into the government. In fact, it was already a coalition government. The new government might include members of the moderate opposition but by no means the gangsters or the West’s mercenaries who kill civilians. They belong in the dock,” the expert believes.

As for the threat of the Western military aggression against Syria, such a threat persists for any country, including Russia, the expert believes. Amid the complicated geopolitical situation, the US president is at sea. “First he flies to the East, then to Europe, trying to convince the allies to back the US methods of ruling the world,” said the expert.

“Washington is unnerved as it has lost ground and neither the EU nor the G7 want to support the White House’s aggressive plans. The US goal is to unbalance the world, including the Middle East, in order to take control of the key hydrocarbon resources and strategic communications,” said Ivashov. He believes that in order to pull the US economy through, Washington intends to continue plundering different countries with their practical colonization, which is the main difference between Russia’s and the US approaches to settlement of the Syrian crisis.

 

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TASS may not share the opinions of its contributors