Mikdad to Xinhua: President Al-Assad Real Guarantee for Syria’s Future Security, Stability

DAMASCUS- Nominating President Bashar Al-Assad to the forthcoming presidential elections is the real guarantee for the security and stability of Syria, Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal al-Mikdad has stressed in a recent interview with the Chinese News Agency (Xinhua), reiterating the Syrian people’s right to self determination.

“President Bashar al-Assad is the real guarantee for the security and stability of Syria and can lead the reconstruction process to restore Syria as a real power in this region,” Mikdad said.

He stressed that despite difficult security circumstances in the country, the Syrian government would provide positive circumstances for all citizens if the elections took place.

“I can assure you that in case the presidential elections took place, all of the positive circumstances would be provided for every citizen to participate in that process,” he said.

“We must not allow terrorism and those who don’t believe in democracy to have a final say on ground,” Mikdad said. “We must not allow them to fight the elections that have become a way to establish real foundations for popular democracy and determine the future of the country,” he added.

“Syria won’t kneel to the tremendous international pressure…Syria will stay steadfast through its people, leadership and army and its friends as well,” Mikdad said, adding that foreign schemes in Syria will fail.

Concerning the Geneva2 conference talks, the deputy minister said he did not have much faith that the conflict could be quickly solved within a specified time frame. He also said he did not know when the third round of talks would begin.

“Why do some parties say that the third round is going to be the last one? It would have been so useful if no time frames were set, because sometimes this would put the negotiators in the face of pressures and impossible options. So, whoever demands this is having other goals; to eliminate the political work and to get ready for a military action.”

Mikdad held the so-called “Opposition Coalition” for the failure of the first two rounds of talks.

Mekdad, who is part of the Syrian government’s delegation to Geneva II conference, stressed that “the government wants to end the three- year-old crisis”.

“We want this crisis to end today before tomorrow, but if others want to eliminate Syria, we must confront them,” he said. “If they want to support terrorism in Syria to disintegrate the unity of Syria, we must confront them and this is the will of the Syrian people and leadership and it’s the will of the Syrian army”.

Mikdad asserted that “Syria always stresses that every international envoy or mediator should be objective and should propose ideas that bring the two sides closer to each other”.

H. Mustafa