Syrian President Bashar Assad said in comments published on Wednesday that last week’s Paris attacks were a result of the West’s support for terrorism, adding his country is against the killings of civilians anywhere in the world.
In an interview with Czech publication Literarni Noviny, Assad called on Western politicians to reconsider their backing for Syrian terrorists.
“We are against the killing of innocent people anywhere in the world,” Assad said. “At the same time, we want to remind people in the West that we have been talking about such consequences since the beginning of the Syrian crisis.”
“We told the West that it should not support terrorism and give it political cover because it would all affect your countries and your people. They didn’t listen to us,” he said.
In the interview, Assad also accused Western politicians of being ‘short-sighted’ and said that the attacks in France proved that “what we said was true”.
He added that Syria has suffered from “this kind of terrorism” for the past four years and lost thousands of people and therefore sympathizes with the families of victims in France.
Syrian president also urged states fighting terrorism to share intelligence.
Western states, including France, have rejected past offers from the Syrian government to be part of the fight against the ISIL group that has been targeted by US-led air strikes in Syria since September.
“There should be ... an exchange of information between the countries concerned with fighting terrorism,” Assad said.
Assad said European policies were “responsible for what happened in our region and recently in France”.
More than 200,000 people have been killed in nearly-four-year conflict in the country.