Moderate Syria militants don’t exist: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Alex Christoforou, with the theduran.com, to discuss the remarks made by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad saying the foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists will gain no more ground in Aleppo.

A rough transcription of the interview appears below.

Press TV: Let me just first get your reaction to the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad saying to the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s dreams that will turn into a graveyard in the city of Aleppo.

Christoforou: Well the speech really comes as no surprise because just the other day Russia re-entered the battlefield with airstrikes to support the Syrian army. Now all of this comes on the back of what was supposed to be a cessation of hostilities, one of which was not a cessation and in actuality was a re-arming of al-Nusra, al-Qaeda by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and indirectly by the United States.

So what you are seeing here is Assad in conjunction with the partners that have been invited to protect the sovereignty of Syria, actually telling Turkey directly, Saudi Arabia indirectly and the United States indirectly that you re-armed al-Qaeda and al-Nusra, you are attacking Aleppo and now we are going to come back and provide a military solution to this conflict and there is a military solution unfortunately.

Press TV: Which is?

Christoforou: Which is that the Syrian army, the legitimate Syrian army will have to fight to retake Aleppo without any diplomatic process. I mean we have tried it now for three months. The US is actively now, for lack of a better word, begging Russia not to bomb al-Nusra out of fear that they are going to actually hit these so-called moderate rebels, which no one knows who they are, until they have a chance to separate them from al-Nusra. This is fantasy, it is fiction and so what you are seeing now is a frustration of legitimate Syrian army, Assad, Russia, and the partners that have been invited to solve the crisis in Syria actually now moving towards a military solution.  

Press TV: So, forgive me of I ask this question, I’d like to get a clarification from you, when the US tells Russia do not target the so-called rebels because the al-Nusra front is mixed in with them, does that mean they are fighting along with them or that they are in the same place geographically?   

Christoforou: Well, they are fighting along with them, they are in the same place geographically, the question is it is such a mess that no one even knows but I want to make a point that when the US was bombing Afghanistan back in 2002-2003, they did not make a distinction between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. They bombed indiscriminately. And now they are coming back to Syria and to Russia and they are saying, ‘Please do not do anything until we have an opportunity to separate these moderate forces from al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’ but no one really knows who exactly these moderate forces are because to be honest in all the years of fighting they have not really been defined, not even the State Department has been able to define who they are.

So really it is almost like a ghost, a phantom and unfortunately they use this excuse to re-arm al-Nusra, al-Qaeda via Turkey to attack Aleppo again and they are attacking Aleppo during Ramadan so it just goes to show that the diplomatic process... has broken down.

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