Syria’s Assad says conflict will last long

PanARMENIAN.Net - The conflict in Syria will likely drag on for a long period and divisions in the opposition pose an obstacle to dialogue with Damascus, visitors to President Bashar Assad quoted him as saying, Lebanon’s As-Safir reported Monday, March 18.

“The battle is still long because we are fighting terrorism which all the forces in the world have failed to defeat,” the Syrian president was quoted as saying, according to The Daily Star.

“But things have become much better at both the political and military levels,” he said.

Assad said that although “the war will not end anytime soon,” his troops are determined to “eradicate” the phenomenon of terrorism in his country.

Earlier this month, Assad was quoted by his visitors as saying his troops had gained the upper hand against rebels in the two-year-old conflict and could win in "two weeks" should Turkey halt its support to insurgents.

Damascus insists it is waging a war against foreign-backed “armed gangs” seeking to topple Assad. The United Nations says over 70,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict in March 2011.

In the As-Safir report Monday, Assad admitted that the militant Nusra Front, which the United States has listed as a terror group, had “overpowered” the state on a number of occasions but insisted that his forces were in a better shape than Damascus’ opponents.

When asked to comment on reports of an increased presence of gunmen, breaches to the states’ security by the Nusra Front and the weakened state of the economy, Assad said: “This is all true but our situation remains much better than the situation of those fighting the state, whether inside or outside Syria, and their supporters.”

Assad was also quoted as saying that he would only engage in dialogue with the opposition based “on our own principles.”

“We will engage in dialogue with those who want dialogue, [but not if] they are terrorists, but based on our own principles and we did not accept conditions imposed on us at the start of the crisis and we will not do so [now],” he said.