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 Assad was speaking in an interview with the U.S.-based Foreign
Affairs Magazine published on Monday.
"With any country that is serious about fighting terrorism, we are
ready to make cooperation, if they're serious," Assad said, when
asked if he would be willing to take steps to make cooperation
easier with Washington.
Washington supports opposition forces fighting for the past four
years to topple Assad, but its position has become complicated since
Islamic State and other hardline groups emerged as the most powerful
rebel factions.
Since Islamic State took over much of Syria and Iraq last summer,
the United States has mounted regular air strikes against it. But it
has rejected the idea of allying itself with the Syrian government
despite them now having a common enemy.
When asked what he would like to see from the United States, Assad
said Washington should pressure Turkey not to allow money and
weapons into northern Syria and "to make legal cooperation with
Syria and start by asking permission from our government to make
such attacks".
"The format we can discuss later, but you start with permission. Is
it an agreement? Is it a treaty? That’s another issue," he said.
Washington informed Damascus before it started strikes in Syria in
September.
The power of the hardline Islamists, including Islamic State and the
al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, makes it more difficult for the
United States to find a suitable ally on the ground.
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It plans to train and equip members of the mainstream Syrian
opposition to fight Islamic State as part of its strategy to roll
back the group's gains in Syria.
A first group of about 100 U.S. troops will head to the Middle East
in the next few days to establish training sites for Syrian
opposition fighters.
Assad said the campaign should be backed up by the Syrian army on
the ground.
"The question you have to ask the Americans is, which troops are you
going to depend on? Definitely, it has to be Syrian troops."
The United Nations says 200,000 people have been killed in the civil
war, which started with pro-democracy protests that were violently
repressed.
(Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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