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News > World

Adviser to Assad: US, Turkish Forces Are 'Illegal Invaders'

  • Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Venezuelan state television TeleSUR in Damascus, in this handout photograph distributed by Syria's national news agency SANA on September 26, 2013.

    Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Venezuelan state television TeleSUR in Damascus, in this handout photograph distributed by Syria's national news agency SANA on September 26, 2013. | Photo: Reuters

Published 8 November 2017
Opinion

The Syrian government has committed itself to territorial integration by condemning foreign-backed opposition forces.

Bouthaina Shaaban, a top adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said that forces backed by the United States and Turkey are “illegal invaders” and that the Syrian government would “deal with” them.

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Shaaban said that Syria would not abandon territories under the control of U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which recently liberated Raqqa, a major population center in northern Syria, from the Islamic State group.

This statement comes in the wake of several months of operations in Deir Ezzor province, where the Syrian armed forces have established control over Deir Ezzor city and many other cities along the southern banks of the Euphrates River. The latest operation launched by the Syrian coalition will seek to secure the Syrian-Iraqi border near Albukamal, where the Islamic State group has retreated to.

SDF forces have launched a parallel offensive along the northern banks of the Euphrates River. Analysts warn of a possible confrontation between Syrian and SDF forces.

The U.S.-led coalition’s official position is that they do not wish to battle Syrian forces, but they expect the departure of President Bashar al-Assad to be a fundamental condition of reconciliation.

“Turkey today is a colonizer country, its forces on our soil are illegal, just as the American forces are on our soil illegally,” Shaaban said in a televised interview with al-Mayadeen, referring to Turkey’s entry into Idlib province.

“We will deal with this issue as we deal with any illegal invader force on our lands.”

Earlier, President Assad said that the Syrian coalition would focus on combatting the Islamic State group in Deir Ezzor province, but added that Syria and its allies might take the battle to those who “divide and weaken states,” referring to SDF forces.

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The SDF has advocated for a ‘federalized Syria’ that would decentralize the authority of the central government.

“Everything is up to the Syrians and to discussions between Syrians, and there cannot be discussion on the division or cutting up of a part of the country or on so-called federalism,” Shaaban said.

Shaaban pointed to recent events in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where Kurdish secessionist ambitions were quickly shot down by a regional coalition of countries opposed to Kurdish independence, saying that this “should be a lesson.”

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