Tag: Assad

Syrian President Assad re-elected with 95% of votes: official

DAMASCUS, Syria (AFP) — Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has been re-elected with 95.1 percent of the votes cast, the parliamentary speaker announced Thursday, following an election criticised by the opposition and Western nations. The two other presidential candidates, former state minister Abdallah Salloum Abdallah and Mahmud Merhi, a member of the so-called “tolerated opposition”, received 1.5 percent and 3.3 percent of the vote respectively, according to the official results of Wednesday’s election. In a country […]

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Assad approves $9.2 billon budget

DAMASCUS, Syria (AFP) — Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday approved a $9.2-billion budget for his war-torn country, official media reported. The 2020 budget, approved by Syria’s parliament before being signed off by Assad, sees the country’s deficit rise by 54 percent compared to the current budget, according to the pro-government newspaper Al-Watan. The country’s devastating eight-year war has inflicted damage estimated by the United Nations last year at some $400 billion. The Syrian pound […]

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Assad urges progress on Idlib deal ahead of Syria talks

DAMASCUS, Syria (AFP) — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Friday called for progress on a stalled buffer zone deal around jihadist-dominated Idlib region ahead of fresh talks aimed at ending his country’s eight-year war. Assad met envoy Alexander Lavrentiev from key ally Russia in Damascus to discuss the negotiations due April 25-26 in Kazakhstan. Iran and Russia are the major supporters of the Syrian regime, and along with rebel backer Turkey have sponsored repeated rounds […]

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Putin tells Assad of planned S-300 delivery in phone call: Kremlin

MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Monday spoke to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad for the first time since last week’s downing of a Russian military plane, telling him of Moscow’s plan to deliver a new S-300 air defense system to the Syrian army. In the phone call, initiated by Assad, Putin spoke of “additional measures to ensure the safety of Russian troops in Syria and to reinforce the country’s air defense system, which includes […]

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State video shows Syria’s President Assad driving his way to battle-scarred Ghouta

A video posted by the Syrian Presidency on YouTube showed Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad driving to Eastern Ghouta on Sunday (March 18). Assad paid his first visit in years to the battered enclave to congratulate his troops for their bloody assault on rebels. Syrian state television also broadcast photos of the president dressed in a shirt and jacket surrounded by soldiers, some perched on a tank behind him, in an unspecified part of Eastern Ghouta. […]

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Assad accuses France of backing ‘terrorism’

DAMASCUS, Syria (AFP) — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a scathing attack on France on Monday, accusing it of backing “terrorism” and saying it has “no right to talk about peace” in the war-torn country. His comments came days after Paris accused the Damascus regime of obstructing the latest round of failed peace talks for Syria held in Geneva last week. “France has been the standard bearer of support for terrorism in Syria since the […]

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Putin briefs Trump on Syria after surprise Assad talks

by Maria Panina Agence France Presse SOCHI, Russia (AFP) — President Vladimir Putin discussed Syria on Tuesday with his US counterpart Donald Trump, with both speaking of the need for progress toward a peace settlement following the Russian leader’s surprise summit with Bashar al-Assad. Putin’s talks with Assad were part of Moscow’s effort to reboot the Syrian peace process, after military successes on the ground. Putin’s flurry of diplomacy also included phone talks with Saudi […]

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Syrian forces responsible for sarin attack: UN panel

by Carole Landry Agence France Presse UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces were responsible for a deadly sarin gas attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun that killed scores of people, a UN investigative panel said Thursday. The joint UN-Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) panel said in a much-awaited report that most of the evidence collected supported the “prevailing scenario” that the “sarin was delivered via […]

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Tillerson: No future for Assad in Syria

GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared Thursday that Bashar al-Assad has no future as leader of Syria and will have to leave office as part of a UN-mediated peace process. Tillerson’s comments to reporters came during a visit to Geneva in which he met UN envoy Staffan de Mistura, who is trying to convene a new round of peace talks next month. The secretary said US policy has not changed, […]

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Trump won’t let Assad get away with ‘horrible’ crimes

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — United States President Donald Trump accused Syria’s leader Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday of committing “horrible” crimes against humanity and vowed to prevent his regime from carrying out any more chemical attacks. Speaking at a White House press conference with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Trump also called the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah a threat to the entire Middle East. Trump pledged continued US military aid to Lebanon following his Oval […]

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Syria’s Assad says chemical attack ‘100 percent fabrication’

by Sammy Ketz and Rana Moussaoui Agence France Presse DAMASCUS, Syria (AFP) — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said a suspected chemical weapons attack was a “fabrication” to justify a US military strike, as Moscow digs in to defend its ally despite increasing strains with Washington. In an exclusive interview with AFP in Damascus — his first since the alleged April 4 attack prompted a US air strike on Syrian forces — Assad said his army […]

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Putin warns of chemical weapons ‘provocations’ to frame Assad

MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday warned of future chemical weapons “provocations” in Syria to frame President Bashar al-Assad, just as Washington’s top diplomat arrived for talks in Moscow. “We have information from various sources that such provocations — I cannot call them otherwise — are being prepared in other regions of Syria, including in the southern outskirts of Damascus, where they are again planning to throw some kind of substance […]

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