Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Monday he will preserve the right of the Syrian people to see ousted President Bashar al-Assad brought to justice.
Sharaa told the Washington Post that US President Donald Trump supports Syria’s position on the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Syrian territories it occupied after December 8, the date of the regime’s ouster.
Sharaa held a historic meeting with Trump at the White House on Monday, the first by a Syrian president since the country gained its independence in 1946.
Asked about Israel’s repeated attacks against Syria, he said: “Syria got into war with Israel 50 years ago. Then, in 1974, there was a disengagement agreement. This agreement lasted for 50 years, but when the regime fell, Israel revoked this agreement. They expanded their presence in Syria, expelled the UN peacekeeping mission and occupied new territory.”
“They have conducted over 1,000 airstrikes in Syria since December 8, and that included bombing the Presidential Palace and the Ministry of Defense. But because we want to rebuild Syria, we didn’t respond to these aggressions,” he added.
“The advances that Israel made into Syria are not coming from their security concerns, but from their expansionist ambitions,” Sharaa warned.
“Israel has always claimed that it has concerns about Syria because it is afraid of the threats that the Iranian militias and Lebanon’s Hezbollah represent. We are the ones who expelled those forces out of Syria,” he stressed.
He further continued: “We are engaged in direct negotiations with Israel, and we have gone a good distance on the way to reach an agreement. But to reach a final agreement, Israel should withdraw to their pre-December 8 borders.”
“The United States is with us in these negotiations, and so many international parties support our perspective in this regard. Today, we found that Trump supports our perspective as well, and he will push as quickly as possible in order to reach a solution for this,” he revealed.
Asked if Syria would agree to demilitarize the region south of Damascus, he replied: “To talk about an entire region demilitarized, it will be difficult, because if there is any kind of chaos, who will protect it? If this demilitarized zone was used by some parties as a launching pad for hitting Israel, who is going to be responsible for that?”
“And at the end of the day, this is Syrian territory, and Syria should have the freedom of dealing with their own territory,” Sharaa added.
“Israel occupied the Golan Heights in order to protect Israel, and now they are imposing conditions in the south of Syria in order to protect the Golan Heights. So, after a few years, maybe they will occupy the center of Syria in order to protect the south of Syria. They will reach Munich on that pathway,” he said.
Russia and Assad
Noting that Assad is in Moscow being essentially protected by the government of Vladimir Putin, Sharaa was asked if he had raised the issue with the Russians, to which he replied: “We were in war against Russia for 10 years, and it was a hard, difficult war. They announced that they killed me several times.”
However, “we need Russia because it’s a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. We need their vote to be on our side in some issues, and we have strategic interests with them. We don’t want to push Russia to take alternative or other options in dealing with Syria,” he explained.
“The issue of Bashar al-Assad is troublesome for Russia, and our relationship with them... we’re still in the beginning. We will preserve our rights as Syrians to call for bringing Assad to justice,” he declared.
Common interests with US
On his landmark visit to the White House, he said: “The most important objective is starting on - building the relationship between Syria and the US, because in the past 100 years, it wasn’t a very good relationship.”
“We were looking for common interest between the US and Syria, and we found that we have a lot of common interests that we can build on, such as security interests and economic interests. The stability of Syria will impact the entire region, and the instability of Syria, as well, will impact the region,” he went on to say.
“Stability is linked with the economy, and the economy, or economic development, is linked with the lifting of sanctions. This discussion has been going on for months now, and I believe that we reached good results. But we are still waiting for the final decision,” he remarked.
ISIS fight
On his past as a fighter in Iraq and Syria, Sharaa said: “Fighting is not something shameful if it is done for noble objectives, especially if you are defending your own land and the people who are suffering from injustice. I believe this is something good that people should be commended for. I have fought so many wars, but I have never caused the death of an innocent person.”
“When somebody engages in fighting, they should have a very strong ethical background. The region was affected by the policies - western policies and US policies - and today, we have so many Americans who agree with us that some of these policies were a mistake and that they caused so many wars that were pointless,” he stressed.
On the fight against ISIS, Sharaa said: “We were in a war with the group for 10 years, and we did that without coordination with a Western force or any other country. Syria today is capable of shouldering this responsibility. Keeping Syria divided or having any military force that is not under control of the government, represents the best environment for ISIS to flourish.”
“The best solution is that the US troops present in Syria should supervise the integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces into the central government’s security forces. The task of protecting Syrian territory will be the responsibility of the state,” he explained.
