Syrian President Bashar Assad rejected the idea that Russia was in the know on Israeli airstrikes in Syria.
By: World Israel News Staff and AP
Syrian President Bashar Assad rejected the idea that Russia and Israel worked together to launch strikes against the Assad regime’s troops and military centers.
Assad backed up his contention with the claim that Russian could not at one and the same time help Syrian forces controlled by Assad and at the same time work with Syrian “enemies” to attack the Syrian army.
“Russia never coordinated with anyone against Syria, either politically or militarily, and that’s contradiction; how could they help the Syrian Army advancing and at the same time work with our enemies in order to destroy our army?” Assad told the British Daily Mail.
When pressed on whether Russia knew in advance of airstrikes carried out by Israel, Assad responded, “That’s not true, that’s not true, definitely. We know the details.”
Israel is known to be in close and unbroken contact with Russian forces operating in Syria as part of a wider effort to avoid unintentional clashes between Israeli and Syrian forces. Israel has vowed to ensure that Iranian and Hezbollah distance themselves from the Golan Heights.
Russia has hinted that Iran should not remain near Israel’s northern border.
Assad, however, maintained in his interview with the Daily Mail that it was Syria that ultimately was calling the shots.
“They never, during our relation, try to dictate, even if there are differences; because there is a war and because there’s high dynamism now in the region, it’s natural to have differences between the different parties, whether within our government or other governments; Russia-Syria, Syria-Iran, Iran-Russia, and within these governments, that’s very natural, but at the end the only decision about what’s going on in Syria and what’s going to happen, it’s a Syrian decision,” he said.