{"id":1966,"date":"2012-06-04T01:20:52","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T21:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/?p=1966"},"modified":"2012-06-04T01:20:52","modified_gmt":"2012-06-03T21:20:52","slug":"syrians-back-regime-assad-tells-russia-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/en\/%d0%bd%d0%be%d0%b2%d0%be%d1%81%d1%82%d0%b8-en\/syrians-back-regime-assad-tells-russia-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"Syrians back regime, Assad tells Russia TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By Stuart WILLIAMS<\/strong><\/p>\n

AFP<\/p>\n

France
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Syrians showed in elections this month that they support the government\u2019s policy of reform and a majority back the regime, President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview broadcast Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The results of the May 7 legislative poll showed that the Syrian people \u201care until now supporting the policy of reform\u201d and \u201csupport the institutions of the state\u201d, Assad told Russia\u2019s \u201cRossia-24\u201d state news channel.<\/p>\n

Assad, whose regime has been engaged in a bloody standoff with opposition rebels, lashed out at \u201cthreats of terrorists\u201d which he said were aimed at preventing the elections from taking place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Syrian people are not scared of the threats of terrorists who have tried to wreck the elections or even prevent us from holding them,\u201d he added in the interview.<\/p>\n

Voter turnout was 51.26 percent, Syrian officials have said. So far only limited results have been released.<\/p>\n

The interview, which was carried out by a Russian television journalist in Damascus, was conducted in English but heavily dubbed into Russian for the broadcast.<\/p>\n

Assad described the elections as a \u201cvery important step\u201d and \u201cpart of the reform that we started around a year ago\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe polling stations show the opinion of the people. It is a serious message for everyone both inside the country and also beyond its borders,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

An upsurge of violence in Syria, where activists say more than 12,000 people have been killed since March, has cast doubt on the future of UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan\u2019s peace plan which many commentators see as a final chance to stop civil war.<\/p>\n

Assad complained that since the arrival of UN observers monitoring the Annan plan there had been a reduction in \u201cdirect confrontation\u201d between the two sides but an increase in \u201cterrorist attacks\u201d.<\/p>\n

Accusing the West of ignoring opposition violence, he said: \u201cThe West only talks about violence, violence on the government side. There is not a word about the terrorists. We are still waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Annan was due again in Syria this month. \u201cI will ask him what this is about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assad denounced the armed opposition as a gang of \u201ccriminals\u201d who he said contained religious extremists including members of Al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not an army and it is not free,\u201d he said, referring to the opposition Free Syrian Army that is fighting the regime.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey get money and weapons from abroad from various countries. It is a group of criminals who have for years broken the law and received convictions. There are also religious extremists there like from Al-Qaeda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assad said that many \u201cforeign mercenaries\u201d from Arab countries fighting for the opposition had been killed but others were still alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have been captured and we are preparing to show them to the world,\u201d he said, without giving further details.<\/p>\n

He also repeated claims first in Serbian media and repeated by Russia that members of the armed opposition were travelling to Kosovo in order to gain experience from former fighters there.<\/p>\n

Published:\u00a0 May 16,<\/em> 2012 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stuart WILLIAMS AFP France Syrians showed in elections this month that they support the government\u2019s policy of reform and a majority back the regime, President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview broadcast Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[377,3],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1968,"href":"https:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1966\/revisions\/1968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theanalyticon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}