Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview to Russian media that recapturing the city of Aleppo from rebel forces would be a springboard for his Military to push the “terrorists” back to Turkey.
“You cannot cut, you have to clean. You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey, to go back to where they come from, or to kill them. There’s no other option. But Aleppo is going to be a very important springboard to do this move,” said Assad.
According to people on the ground in the eastern part of Aleppo, massive air strikes by Syria and Russia had killed more than 150 people in the past 24 hours. As the air strikes and shelling of the city’s east intensifies, Syria’s government approved a United Nations plan to allow aid convoys into the most besieged areas of Syria, with the exception of Aleppo. With regard to the growing tension between Russia and the West, President Assad said it resembled the Cold War, while accusing the West of continuing their Cold War policies, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“I would say, what we have now, what we’ve been seeing recently during the last few weeks, and maybe few months, is something like more than Cold War, less than war, or full-blown war. I don’t know what to call it, but it’s not something that has existed recently, because I don’t think that the West and especially the United States has stopped their Cold War, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union,” continued Assad.
Since the beginning to the conflict in Syria, some five-and-a-half-years ago, more than half a million people were killed and more than 11 million Syrians lost their homes, bringing about the most severe humanitarian crisis since World War Two.