Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Assad Regime Says Conflict With Rebels in Syria Has Reached a Stalemate

Fighting between Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces and the opposition has reached a stalemate, and the regime plans on calling for a ceasefire at an upcoming conference in Geneva, Syria’s deputy prime minister has told the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper.

In the interview published Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said that neither the opposition nor the government is strong enough to tip the balance in the conflict, which has raged for the past two years, and led to the loss of more than 100,000 lives.

“Neither the armed opposition nor the regime is capable of defeating the other side,” the newspaper cited him as saying. “This zero balance of forces will not change for a while.”

Jamil,who told the newspaper his comments in the interview represented the government’ position, also said that the country’s economy has suffered heavily as a result of the civil war.

If Syria’s rebel forces were to okay a ceasefire, it would have to be “under international observation,” the newspaper cited Jamil as saying. Monitors of UN peacekeepers from “friendly or neutral countries” could fill that role, he said.

The upcoming conference in Geneva on Syria’s future, is dubbed Geneva 2. The first was in June last year. Syria’s opposition forces leaders have said they won’t attend the conference unless Assad quits his post.

Read more at Haartez.com

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.