Assad says ‘double standard’ western countries have collaborated with his regime

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Western powers who publicly condemn his regime have secretly been working with it, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claimed in an interview on Friday. 

“This is the double standard of the West in general: They attack us politically and they send us their officials to deal with us under the table, especially the security, including your government,” Assad claimed in an interview with the Australian SBS news station. 

“They all do the same. They don’t want to upset the United States. Actually, most of the Western officials, they only repeat what the United States wants them to say. This is the reality,” he went on to charge. 

The US leads a coalition which frequently carries out airstrikes in Syria, but only against Islamic State (ISIS) militants in support of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Washington says it hasn’t coordinated any of its operations in Syria with Damascus and US officials invariably rule out any kind of coordination with Assad, even if for the ad-hoc goal of defeating ISIS. 

Assad believes that America is not serious about resolving war in Syria, saying that, “They have failed in Libya, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Syria, everywhere. They only created chaos. So If the United States wants to create more chaos, it can … but can they solve the problem? No.” 

The Syrian president also said he supports returning to the United Nations’ Syrian negotiations in Geneva. However he said to date the regime has only talked with the UN mediator, Staffan de Mistura. 

He accordingly argued that direct talks with them and the opposition need to start. 

“We support the principle, but in practice you need to have a certain methodology that didn’t exist so far. So, we need to start, but we need to have the basic principles for those negotiations to be fruitful,” he said.