Accept that Assad is here to stay (Syria tells West)

Syria’s envoy to the United Nations said on Friday it is time for the United States and other Western powers to accept that President Bashar al-Assad is here to stay, and to abandon what he suggested was a failed strategy of trying to split the Middle East into sectarian enclaves.
Speaking on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Syrian war, Assad’s long-serving U.N. ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said his president was ready to work with the United States and others to combat terrorism in the Middle East.
“We don’t want any vacuum in the country that would create chaos such as happened in Libya and Iraq and ... Afghanistan,” he said. “President Assad can deliver because he is a strong president. He rules over a strong institution, which is the Syrian army. He has resisted pressure for four years.”
“He is the man who can deliver any solution,” he added.
Britain and France have rejected calls to restore ties with the Assad government. U.S. officials say there is no shift in their policy regarding Assad, even as their focus is fighting Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot which is also an enemy of Damascus..............http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/03/07/Syria-to-West-Accept-that-Assad-is-here-to-stay-.html
7/3/15
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