Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
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Damascus, SANA – Presidential Political and Media Advisor Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban stressed that Syria is going ahead with fighting terrorism which is being funded and armed by regional and international forces.
Shaaban’s remarks came during a televised interview with Beirut-based al-Mayadeen TV channel aired Thursday.
She pointed out that the country will also continue with its approach of national reconciliations in parallel with the progress achieved by the Syrian army on the ground.
Shaaban reiterated Syria’s readiness to be part of any international coalition against terrorism as long as the aim is to “root it out,” pointing out that the talk recently has been only about the “repositioning and redirecting” of terrorism in the region.
She said US President Barack Obama’s latest speech on the counterterrorism strategy he laid out for himself was full of holes and added nothing new to what he has been speaking about months ago of providing funds and arms to what he calls the “moderate opposition” in Syria.
She played down what President Obama said in his speech when he stated that “we will hunt down terrorists” wherever they are and will not allow the minorities or the Christians to be forced out of their home countries.
“In an immediate response to all of that, I say ‘terrorists can’t be hunted down or eliminated only. There must be support for alternative ideologies to overcome the terrorist ideologies which Syria has been suffering from since the outset of the crisis almost four years ago,” she said.
The Presidential Advisor lashed out at Obama’s strategy for overlooking the terrorist organization of Jabhat al-Nusra in the call for fighting terrorism according to the recently issued Security Council’s resolution no. 2170 while focusing only on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist organization.
She questioned the objectives behind such gaps. “Is the aim one of combating terrorism or dragging the whole region back into the US space in service of its geostrategic interests?” Shaaban wondered.
She also criticized the Western classifying of the armed opposition in Syria as “moderate”, as being part of its unchanged double standard policy for four years, lambasting the West for having remained silent throughout the period when the Syrian people had been getting killed at the hands of terrorists, only to move when an American journalist, James Foley, was beheaded by ISIS last month.
Answering a question on the options which could rise from Obama’s suggestion of arming groups inside Syria other than the national army, Shaaban said “The west has supported those terrorist groups since the very beginning whether with funds, weapons or facilitating the flow of terrorists into the country.”
She decried that talk as being “a matter of boosting morale and making people believe that a big thing is underway which would shift the balance of power in the region.”
“Who that will shift the balance of power on the Syrian territory are the Syrian people and the Syrian Arab Army and no one else,” Shaaban stressed.
Shaaban didn’t consider that setting up training camps for ISIS terrorists in Saudi Arabia as something to be wondered about “since such camps have already existed in Turkey and were said to be in Jordan as well, and now they want them to be in Saudi Arabia,” noting that wherever those camps would be “the result is the same.”
Asked About the risk of using the international resolution no.2170 as an umbrella to attack Syria just like what happened in Libya, Shaaban said “Russia and China say that any strike on Syria without previous coordination with them and the Syrian government would be an act of aggression.”
She noted that the US would not carry on with its acts in the region “without taking into consideration the reaction of those countries, including Syria, Iran, China and Russia.”
Shaaban said that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the reason for everything taking place in the region, adding that Israel has found in the current situation “a golden opportunity” to realize its interests.
Rasha Raslan/Haifa Said
