Assad Slams West’s Intervention, Vows More Reforms

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad stressed Sunday his satisfaction about the situation in Syria at the economic and security level addressing several reform steps and referring to the municipal and parliamentary elections which would be held respectively in January and February 2012.

During a televised interview with the Syrian state TV, the Syrian president severely criticized the US and its allies for their intervention in the country's internal affairs, saying they were hindering political change in Syria, while political solution was the only way out of the country's crisis.

“While withholding comment, we tell them that their words are worthless,” Assad said in an interview with state television. “Such remarks should not be made about a president who was chosen by the Syrian people and who was not put in office by the West, a president who was not made in the United States.”

“The plan was to overthrow Syria during a period of weeks and what helped us is the will and vigilance of the Syrian people.”

Noting about the reforms Syria had made, Assad said: “We have started to register some success on the security front and can say that the situation is now more reassuring”. “A political solution cannot be put in place if security is not preserved.”

He said local elections would be held in December, to be followed by parliamentary polls in February after a new law on political parties comes into effect this week.

He also ruled out bowing to Western demands. “When they speak of reforms, Western colonialist countries mean that we must give them everything they want, that we abandon resistance, that we abandon our rights ... They shouldn't even dream of it ... We will not bow.”

Unrest started to sweep through Syria in mid-March, claiming the lives of hundreds of people, including members of the security forces. Damascus says that the tension is being orchestrated from outside the country and that the security forces have been given clear instructions not to harm civilians.

The president likewise said, “There is nothing called the security choice, the security alternative, there is only the political solution ...our choice was the political solution, however the political solution cannot be successful without maintaining and preserving security, and this is the duty of state.”

Syrian state TV has broadcast reports and images of seizure of arms caches as well as confessions by terrorist elements, pointing to how they obtained weaponry from foreign sources.

Western powers had called for Syria’s Assad to give up power and threatened the country with further sanctions.

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