Syria’s Assad dismisses calls to step down

PanARMENIAN.Net - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad dismissed American and European calls for him to step down as “meaningless” on Sunday, August 21, and he declared that Syria’s ailing economy could withstand escalating international sanctions.

In an interview with Syrian television, Mr. Assad hardly mentioned the hundreds of thousands of protesters this summer who have posed the gravest challenge to his family’s four decades of rule.

“Syria will not fall unless there will be a crisis that will finish Syria and this can’t happen,” he said, wearing a blue suit and seeming relaxed. “I am reassured that the Syrians will come out of this crisis. I am not worried, and I want to reassure everybody.”

Referring only obliquely to the protests, he suggested that the solution was “political.” But despite insistent calls for him to refrain from using violence against demonstrators, he suggested that the security forces would continue the crackdown.

“The solution is political, but there are security situations that require the interference of security institutions,” he said, The New York Times reported.