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 Speaking to Reuters on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the
Syrian war, Assad's long-serving U.N. ambassador Bashar Ja'afari
said his president was ready to work with the United States and
others to combat terrorism in the Middle East.
"We don't want any vacuum in the country that would create chaos
such as happened in Libya and Iraq and ... Afghanistan," he said.
"President Assad can deliver because he is a strong president. He
rules over a strong institution, which is the Syrian army. He has
resisted pressure for four years."
"He is the man who can deliver any solution," he added.
Britain and France have rejected calls to restore ties with the
Assad government. U.S. officials say there is no shift in their
policy regarding Assad, even as their focus is fighting Islamic
State, an al Qaeda offshoot which is also an enemy of Damascus.
"We have been open for cooperation (with the U.S.)," Ja’afari said.
"They don't want it."
Some European Union countries that withdrew their ambassadors from
Syria are saying privately it is time for more communication with
Damascus, diplomats said in February.
Diplomats say the calls have come from or would be supported by
countries including Sweden, Denmark, Romania, Bulgaria, Austria and
Spain, as well as the Czech Republic, which did not withdraw its
ambassador. Norway and Switzerland, which are outside the EU, are
also supportive.
Such countries say that the threat from Islamic State has made Assad
the lesser of two evils, seeing a need to re-engage with Damascus as
a potential ally against the extremists, according to the diplomats.
U.S. officials at the United Nations did not have an immediate
comment on Ja'afari's latest statements.
They noted recent comments to the Security Council by Washington's
U.N. ambassador Samantha Power rejecting the argument that countries
should partner with Damascus to more effectively fight extremists.
The United States and other Western powers have condemned Assad for
widespread human rights violations since the uprising against his
government began in 2011.
But Ja'afari insisted that keeping Assad, who was re-elected last
year in a poll his foes regard as illegitimate, was the only path to
peace and unity.
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"NOT A SYRIAN CONFLICT"
Ja'afari said that "many European delegations" had visited Damascus
to ask for strengthened anti-terrorism cooperation, without
specifying which countries.
"We are telling everyone ... if you want this cooperation to be
fruitful you need to get back to Syria, to reopen your embassies."
Indicating that Damascus wants Assad restored to international
political legitimacy in exchange for security cooperation, Ja'afari
said that "the benefit of such cooperation should be mutual ... not
only unilateral."
He blasted U.S. President Barack Obama's strategy of training and
arming what he described as "so-called moderate" rebels, saying it
had only served to deliver weapons into the hands of Islamic State.
The training of rebels has proven difficult. The Hazzm movement was
once central to a covert CIA operation to arm Syrian rebels, but the
group's collapse last week underlined the failure of efforts to
unify Arab and Western support for mainstream insurgents.
"This is not a Syrian conflict," Ja'afari said.
"It is an international terror war waged against the Syrian
government and the Syrian people," he added, referring to the tens
of thousands of foreign fighters who have joined Islamic State and
other jihadist group in the country.
(Editing by Stuart Grudgings)
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