Syria's Assad blames West for refugee crisis
Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad has blamed Europe's refugee crisis on Western
support for "terrorists", as people fleeing his country's civil war
stream towards the European Union.
In his first public comments on the mass migration, broadcast on Wednesday, Assad said Europe could expect more refugees.
Countries including the United States,
Turkey and Saudi Arabia want to see Assad gone from power and have
supported the opposition to his rule during the four-year-old war,
including some of the armed groups fighting him.
Assad said Turkish support had been
crucial to the growth of two of the biggest insurgent groups in Syria,
Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, and aerial bombing by
a U.S.-led coalition had failed to stop Islamic State. Turkey denies
the accusation.
The Syrian president dismissed Western
suggestions that his government's actions in the war had fueled the
spread of such groups.
"As long as they follow this
propaganda, they will have more refugees," Assad said in an interview
with Russian media. "If you are worried about them, stop supporting
terrorists."
The Syrian government describes all the
armed groups fighting it as terrorists. The insurgents in Syria range
from the hardline Islamist Islamic State to nationalists viewed as
moderate by the West.
