SYRIA’S President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday that the Turkish president Erdogan may be using the ‘coup attempt’ in Turkey to eliminate his opponents in government institutions, such as the army, the judiciary and the civil service.
Assad was speaking with a visiting delegation of Lebanese politicians headed by Najah Wakim, the president of the Lebanese People’s Movement. Elsewhere in his remarks, Assad referred to the armed conflict in his own country and said the fate of Syria will have to be determined on the battlefield.
‘In the ongoing battle on Syrian soil, no compromise can be made because armed groups that are being managed by foreign parties can only be handled with the military,’ the Syrian president said.
In fact, the Syrian army is on the brink of completely retaking Aleppo, Syria’s largest and most industrial city, while other forces are heading for the IS capital Raqqa. Assad continued that political, diplomatic, military and security cooperation continues firmly between his government and that of Russia.
He explained how the situation had changed, and that western governments have had secret contacts with his government seeking security cooperation and even the opening of security missions in Damascus. He said: ‘Some countries and Arab parties have secret contacts with us and say explicitly that they do not publicise their stances toward the Syrian developments lest the US and Saudi Arabia are angered.’
Previously he said of some western countries: ‘They attack us politically and then they send officials to deal with us under the table, especially on security.’ In fact, it has been Erdogan’s Turkey that has been consistently working along with Saudi Arabia to arm and assist the Al Nusra Front and the IS to overthrow the Assad regime, so that they can divide Syria up between them, before moving onto northern Iraq.
Erdogan’s inability to crush the Syrian people and Assad has now led to a major crisis at home in Turkey with Erdogan moving against the working class trade unions, the bourgeois media and the military.
The Turkish ruling class has overstretched itself. It has been defeated in Syria, and with the failed coup and the mass repressions now being launched at home to purge the armed forces, the police, the judiciary, the media and the trade unions, it is digging its own grave.
In fact, western calls for Assad’s ousting have become relatively muted as the European ruling classes have become preoccupied with the rise of Daesh and other Takfiri groups striking at the heart of Europe – in Brussels, Paris and Nice – and as they grudgingly realize that Damascus is, in fact, their first line of defence, their shield against terrorism.
Only the UK is lagging behind in this respect. Boris Johnson, now Foreign Secretary, said previously to taking office, at the time of the liberation of Palmyra by Syria and Russia, that: ‘We need someone to provide the boots on the ground; and given that we are not going to be providing British ground forces – and the French and the Americans are just as reluctant – we cannot afford to be picky about our allies.’
He wrote: ‘We have the estimated 70,000 of the Free Syrian Army (and many other groups and grouplets); but those numbers may be exaggerated, and they may include some jihadists who are not ideologically very different from al-Qaida.
‘Who else is there? The answer is obvious. There is Assad, and his army; and the recent signs are that they are making some progress. Thanks at least partly to Russian airstrikes, it looks as if the regime is taking back large parts of Homs. Al-Qaida-affiliated militants are withdrawing from some districts of the city. Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so.’
However, the new Foreign Secretary, just hours before meeting US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday, sang a different tune for the benefit of his US master, anxious to get back into his good books after the Brexit mutiny.
In a statement before Tuesday’s talks, Johnson said: ‘I will be making clear my view that the suffering of the Syrian people will not end while Assad remains in power. The international community, including Russia, must be united on this.’ The position of the US master and its British slave has been restored.
British workers will pour scorn on the ‘crawler’ Johnson, and give their support to the Syrian government that has withstood a vicious imposed war on it and its people. They stand for the victory of the Syrian people and Assad, and for the victory of the Turkish workers over the Erdogan dictatorship.
