Syria’s Flag

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Since UN cease fire in Syria was initiated, attacks from foreign intruders have escalated with one seaborne attack on the Syrian military made from a Turkish ship.

Press TV has interviewed Saeb Shaath, author and Middle East expert, about how the UN cease fire is being played purposefully to further an imperialist agenda for military intervention in Syria to achieve forced regime change. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Saeb Shaath, let’s have your view on this. The media, meanwhile, it looks like it can no longer ignore all the photos now and footage of these armed men who are very clearly carrying heavy weapons and launching attacks.

Would you agree that they are being supported by foreign powers and we should not call them parts of the opposition or parts of the protesters who’ve taken up arms to try and topple the regime?

Shaath: These guys, as my friend Sukant Chandon (other Press TV guest) said, are truly supported by the reactionary regimes and western imperialist countries to achieve their goal. It’s been used before – we’ve seen it in the scenario of Libya – they done that  by trying to, (in Libya’s case) taken over Benghazi; and then split the country and spread from there.

That’s what they tried to do in Syria and they failed. They tried to do that through Homs – to take Homs as the heart, the middle of Syria near the sea and split the country from there to small fighting zones and spread their gangs.

And we know from the beginning, last year we discovered 600 (rebels) from the TNC (Transitional National Council) in Libya arrived through the Turkish border and the Libyan Tripoli chief of the TNC was  in there at the Turkish/Syrian border.

These guys are trained by the CIA, by Western countries supported by the French, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and they are trying to achieve regime change; if they cannot then  they try to bring the country into stage by stage of chaos to create a sort of civil war.

This civil war would be targeted at ethnic groups to encourage them to immigrate like what happened with the Christians in Iraq. Most of them left the country when they were attacked under the umbrella of the American protection; and the same thing is happening in Syria. We notice that in cities like Homs and Hama, most of the Arab Christians are targeted, their property looted and taken by these terrorist gangs.

Now, the West has discovered that Syria as a country as a state and as a people is intact – they cannot defeat them through these gangs.

Now they want to try to move to another scenario. The Syrian army security apparatus is all intact; there is huge support for the Syrian government from its people; and the people are discovering and understanding, the majority of them, who is behind these acts and they wonder how you can support, if they want to call it a ‘revolution’, supported by imperialists by NATO by the reactionary forces in the Arab world like Qatar and Saudi Arabia who are historically part of the imperialist and the Zionist agenda.

So, the people have become aware of what is going on. Now there is a move to create another scenario of trying to instigate a war to start from the Turkish side so that NATO can interfere since Turkey is a member of NATO.

Press TV: The solution that Russia and China are pursuing… they’ve been pursuing the negotiated solution, or so they say, and that is part of Kofi Annan’s plan, but already the cease fire hasn’t worked and a lot of people may be saying that considering the situation in Syria negotiation is not even practical or possible; the opposition is divided…

So, basically do you agree with this analysis some are making that maybe Syria needs a transitional government right now to enable that peace process to go forward or that Assad’s government should step down?

Shaath: No, I don’t agree with that since the government in Syria has a duty as a state to protect its own citizens from terrorist attacks. And we understand where these terrorist attacks are coming from – it’s coming from an enemy supported by the imperialists and the Zionists and reactionary regimes that doesn’t want to seer stability in Syria. This is the larger game, a geo-political game, to target Iran, then China, then Russia.

So, it’s part of the world domination game, these days it’s happening. While the West is suffering from huge economic crisis they try to find areas, which they can loot. They are targeting Iran and they are targeting Syria right now and at the same time they are doing that to surround China and Russia. So it’s part of the world domination strategy, which the imperialists have on their agenda. And part of the strength is in the hands of Israel safeguarding the regimes, which are their puppets like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the rest of them.

So we have to understand where this is coming from. If you want to propose a transitional government or such a thing, it means the Syrian people are accepting defeat and they’re moving to the next stage, which is surrendering their country to the Zionists and the imperialists.

It is not going to happen since Syria is strong and Syria is capable of protecting its own borders. But the problem here is the infiltration of the cities because Syria cannot put a soldier or a security guard or a policeman at every Syrian household – that’s what they are using and the people are paying a heavy price and we can see who is aiding and abetting like the Turkish, like the Jordanians and like some parties in Lebanon as well.

If we look at the international arena, the balance of power is shifting. We notice today that Russia is the one who is leading in solving the problems between South Sudan and North Sudan right now. Russia and China are very active…

(Satellite connection temporarily lost with guest)

Press TV: Do you think that Kofi Annan’s peace initiative has failed? Some analysts would be saying that this peace plan was created actually to be violated and to convince the international community that foreign intervention is necessary and should happen? What do you think about that?

Shaath: This Kofi Annan’s plan was designed to appease China and Russia to start with and then to start sending accusations that the Syrian government is responsible for breaking the UN cease fire. And that was designed by the western allies and their Arab puppets to provide the pretext for a military intervention in Syria so they can embarrass and corner the Chinese and the Russians.

This has become very clear now and understood since even Ban Ki Moon on Friday there was a suicide attack on a mosque in Damascus and he has come out attacking Syria and accusing the government of Syria, but he didn’t even mention the suicide attacks on the mosque in there.

So we have to understand the head of the UN is waiting.  The French foreign minister said, we cannot wait until the moment the truth comes on the third of May – to the UN, and to see the UN observers report. So they are designing the whole way to accusing the Syrian government of breaking the cease fire while  we notice the attacks are coming from The Turkish border …

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