Syria’s Assad Insists He Will Confront Israel
Image by getty images
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Tuesday his country was able to confront Israeli aggression, Lebanese media reported, in the leader’s first comments since the Jewish state launched a series of air strikes on military sites in Damascus.
“The recent Israeli aggressions expose the size of the complicity between the Israeli occupation, regional countries and the West in backing the current events in Syria,” Assad was quoted as saying by the pro-Syrian news channel Manar TV.
“The Syrian people and their heroic army … are capable of confronting this Israeli adventure, which represents one of the faces of terrorism that is targeting Syria every day.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said a negotiated political solution to end the civil war in Syria would help avert the danger of the country breaking up and could influence a U.S. decision on arming rebels.
Kerry was speaking after he and Russian leaders agreed at talks in Moscow to try to arrange an international conference on the conflict.
An attempt to agree a political solution last year foundered over whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would have to leave power, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was not concerned about the fate of “certain people”.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
