Assad: I’m Not Western Puppet, I Have to Live and Die in Syria

Local Editor

In an exclusive interview with RT, the Syrian President Bashar Assad said he will not leave Syria. Assad also spoke on the calls for armed foreign intervention in Syria, and the possible fallout on the country’s internal conflict and across the region.

“We are the last stronghold of secularism and stability in the region and coexistence, let’s say, it will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific and you know the implication on the rest of the world,” Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad told RT in an exclusive interview that will air on Friday, November 9.

“I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country,” he said. “I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria,” Assad said during the interview.

Syria has been wracked by internal violence for the past 20 months. With the government and opposition failing to reach an agreement on a ceasefire, foreign nations are pressuring the Syrian president to step down, with some even calling for armed intervention in the war-torn country.




“I do not think the West is going [to intervene], but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next,” Assad said. “I think the price of this [foreign] invasion if it happened is going to be more than the whole world can afford.”

Many in Syria's opposition, including rebels waging fierce battles with pro-regime forces, have urged world powers to intervene to stop the escalating bloodshed.
According to a Turkish official, Ankara has officially requested that NATO deploy Patriot missiles along the border with Syria, over fears that armed conflict could spill across the border.

The armed conflict in Syria has turned increasingly violent in recent months. Rebel forces have received significant financial, diplomatic and organizational support from countries like the US and Western-allied nations such as Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

You can watch the Syrian president’s interview in full on Friday on RT.



Meanwhile, Turkey's President Abdullah Gul said that his country reserve the right to defend itself against any ‘threat’ from neighboring Syria, amid discussions about the possible deployment of US Patriot missiles. In fact Gul wants to defend himself from neighboring Russia.

In a direct Russian message to his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama and a number of European leaders, followed by a similar message delivered by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting with EU foreign ministers, President Vladimir Putin said the following:

"If you want to overthrow President Assad, you have to overthraw Vladimir Putin first",

After Putin's crucial message,  Russian missiles was erected towards Turkey and Putin canceled his visit to Ankara last month.

Even MP Walid Jumblatt, has admitted that President Bashar al-Assad succeeded in transfering the crises to Turkey, and can transferred it to Lebanon if he decides. 

This Russian position pushed Turkish leadership to re-evaluate its position and to consider a solution in Syria under Assad, which means that the latter will determin his future in the case of political settlement, either Assad wins people's confidence in the democratic presidential elections, or the elections director that the Syrian people want it, but because elections produces a new political equations in Syria, and everyone will bow to the popular will, including President Assad.

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