Assad explains why Syria is sticking with Russia — RT World News

Syrian President Bashar Assad has informed RT that Damascus is backing Russia’s army operation in Ukraine each out of loyalty and dedication to an “worldwide equilibrium.” Assad, whose nation has weathered sanctions and a US army intervention, has accused Washington of utilizing the greenback to commit “theft” on a world scale.

Inside hours of Russia launching its offensive on Ukraine in February, President Vladimir Putin took a name from Assad, throughout which the Syrian chief “harassed that Syria stands with the Russian Federation, based mostly on its conviction of the correctness of its place,” in line with a readout of the decision from Damascus. 

“We are able to view Russia from two views,” Assad informed RT on the weekend. “The primary is that of an ally: If our ally triumphs within the battle, or if their political place is strengthened… then it is a win for us as effectively.

“From a second perspective, Russia’s energy at this time constitutes a restoration, albeit partial, of a world equilibrium. This rebalance that we’re witnessing will influence smaller international locations, together with Syria,” he continued.

Assad has been a staunch ally of Putin since 2015, when Russia launched a army marketing campaign in Syria that helped defeat Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS) and the gathering of militias and Western-backed terrorist teams opposing Assad’s authorities.

To the Syrian president, Russia’s present wrestle with the West – described by Russian Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov as a “battle by proxy” – predates the First World Warfare, and can proceed so long as the US greenback stays the world’s reserve foreign money.

“If the greenback continues to manipulate the world financial system, nothing will change, whatever the outcomes of the battle [in Ukraine],” he defined. “Utilizing the greenback is just not blackmail, it’s theft,” he continued, claiming that the Nixon administration’s choice to decouple the greenback’s worth from that of gold within the Nineteen Seventies made it “a nugatory piece of paper.”

“The US nonetheless continues to commerce all over the world utilizing this nugatory piece of paper. That is theft, and it applies to the entire world,” he mentioned.

“So long as the greenback is a world foreign money and continues to be settled by way of US banks or what is named the American Federal Reserve, you might be below the authority of this greenback; and subsequently your future as a state, a rustic or society, as an financial system is below the mercy of america,” he declared.

But amid the rise of China and Russia, the steadiness of energy is shifting away from the US, Assad claimed. 

“Sure, we’re below sanctions, however lots of our primary wants aren’t purchased from Western international locations, we have now severed our relationships with them,” he mentioned. “Each nation can now safe its primary livelihood and progress necessities with out American permission.”

Since Russia turned the most-sanctioned nation on the earth, commerce between Moscow and people capitals refusing to affix the West’s sanctions regime has flourished. Ruble-yuan commerce has soared over 1,000% up to now three months, whereas Russian oil exports to India have elevated by 25 occasions between Might 2021 and Might 2022. Nevertheless, in Syria, which stays the world’s third-most-sanctioned nation, financial penalties proceed to chew.

Whereas Syria nonetheless has the means to offer its residents with free however restricted healthcare, training and subsidies, Assad’s authorities is struggling to rein in corruption and the Syrian chief informed RT that after greater than a decade of civil battle, full-scale reconstruction requires funding.

“There are firms from numerous Arab states which have expressed a want to participate,” he said. “If we bear in mind the acute strain utilized by the West by way of sanctions on any firm that may spend money on Syria, we acknowledge that the method might be gradual and dangerous for a lot of of them. However, there are these which can be making ready to spend money on Syria in methods which circumvent the sanctions.”

Alongside the gradual strategy of rebuilding, Assad visited the United Arab Emirates in March, marking his first journey to an Arab nation since Syria was suspended from the Arab League in 2011. Whereas the media described his go to as a “return” to the diplomatic enviornment, Assad disagrees.

“I don’t know… what the phrase return means, as a result of we by no means left,” he mentioned. “Syria has remained as an alternative, with the identical positions and the identical circumstances, coping with them in its personal method. Even [the Arab states] that withdrew their diplomatic missions maintained the connection and saved optimistic emotions in the direction of Syria regardless of not with the ability to do something.”

Shifting into the long run, Assad mentioned that Syria will ultimately reclaim its oil sources – presently held by Kurdish militias with the backing of the US – by way of “fashionable resistance,” and that Damascus “is not going to hesitate” to defend Syria’s territorial integrity amid Turkish threats to enter the nation and create a “safety zone” alongside the Turkey-Syria border.

Diplomatically, Assad mentioned Syria will speak with any of its Arab neighbors, and can keep its shut relationship with Iran, no matter exterior strain. “Syria’s relations with any nation aren’t topic to dialogue with anybody,” he said. “Nobody decides for Syria with whom it could actually and can’t have relations.”