Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has warned US-backed Kurdish forces he would not hesitate to use force to retake the third of the country they control. "The only problem left in Syria is the SDF," Assad told Russia Today in an interview aired Thursday, referring to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces which has spearheaded battles against Islamic State group (IS) jihadists.
"We're going to deal with it by two options," he said. "The first one: we started now opening doors for negotiations. Because the majority of them are Syrians, supposedly they like their country, they don't like to be puppets to any foreigners," Assad said in English.
"We have one option, to live with each other as Syrians. If not, we're going to resort... to liberating those areas by force." The Kurds in oil-rich northeastern Syria have long pushed for increased autonomy in their heartland but Damascus has insisted it intends to reassert its authority over the entire country.
"It's our land, it's our right and it's our duty to liberate it," Assad said. "The Americans should leave. Somehow they're going to leave." The SDF, dominated by the militia of a self-proclaimed Kurdish autonomous administration, has air support from the US-led coalition against IS and backing from US and French special forces on the ground. Still, the SDF is a local force, said spokesman Kino Gabriel.
"We're a Syrian force par excellence, not a toy in the hands of any side - internal or external," Gabriel told AFP on Thursday. Gabriel denied negotiations between the government and the SDF. He declined to comment on how the alliance would respond in case Assad attacked Kurdish areas, and there has been no other statement from the SDF's military command.
Colonel Sean Ryan, spokesman for the US-led coalition, also did not specify how the body would react to such an attack. "The SDF has done an amazing job helping get Daesh off the battlefield and they should be commended, not threatened," he told AFP on Thursday, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
Both the SDF and Russian-backed Syrian troops are engaged in separate operations against IS in east Syria, creating a highly volatile situation, where de-confliction mechanisms have already been tested several times. The SDF has clashed with Syrian regime fighters on the ground, and the coalition has bombed government forces and their allies on multiple occasions.
Assad said a confrontation between Russia and US forces over Syria had also been narrowly avoided. "We were close to have direct conflict between the Russian forces and the American forces," he said. "Fortunately, it has been avoided, not by the wisdom of the American leadership, but by the wisdom of the Russian leadership."
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