Syrian President Bashar al-Assad described himself this week as being seen by the West as a “devil.”
In an interview with the pan–Latin American teleSUR this week, Assad said: “Yes, from a Western perspective, you are now sitting with the devil. This is how they market it in the West.”
Speaking on the subject of Donald Trump, the Syrian leader said the U.S. president “has no policies,” but is rather implementing decisions made by “the intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, the big arms manufacturers, oil companies, and financial institutions.”
“As we have seen in the past few weeks, he changed his rhetoric completely and subjected himself to the terms of the deep American state, or the deep American regime,” Assad said.
Assad said Trump had “changed his rhetoric completely and subjected himself to the terms of the deep American state, or the deep American regime” following a US air strike on a Syrian regime airbase earlier this month.
The strike came in response to a deadly chemical weapons attack believed to be carried out by the Syrian government, a claim that Assad denies.
“We have asked the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to send specialized missions to investigate what happened. And every time, the United States obstructed these investigations or prevented sending such missions in order to carry out such investigations,” Assad said.
“This is what happened last week when we called for investigations over the alleged use of chemical weapons in the town of Khan Sheikhoun. The United States and its allies prevented OPCW from taking that decision.”
Experts from the world’s watchdog tasked with destroying chemical weapons are probing reports that toxic arms have been used 45 times in Syria since late last year, the body’s chief said Friday.
Director general Ahmet Uzumcu said there was “a huge list of allegations” of the use of toxic arms reported to the operations hub of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
In the “second part of 2016, 30 different incidents, and since the beginning of this year, 15 separate incidents, so 45,” he told a reporters, brandishing a list of several pages which he chose to keep confidential.
They include the April 4 sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun that was reported to have killed 88 people, including 31 children.
“All these allegations are recorded by our experts, who follow this every day from our operations center,” Uzumcu said.
The OPCW is currently trying to ensure it is safe enough to deploy its fact-finding team to the town for further analysis, after Uzumcu said last week that “incontrovertible” test results from OPCW-designated labs on samples taken from victims showed sarin gas or a similar substance had been used.
