President Assad Lauds De-Escalation Zones in Syria

“This is a chance for a person with weapons in hand to pause to think. In other words, if they lay down arms, amnesty would follow,” the Syrian president said in an interview with Belarusian ONT television aired on Thursday.
 
The “foremost” aim of the de-escalation zones is to protect peaceful civilians, president Assad said adding that they also provide armed militants with an opening “to enter into a truce with the government.”
 
The Syrian leader lauded Russia’s peacemaking efforts, in particular, the Astana peace talks, where Moscow proposed the creation of such de-escalation zones in agreement with the other guarantor-states – Iran and Turkey.
 
“In Astana, the dialogue was with the armed terrorists under Russian sponsorship and based on a Russian initiative...This started to produce results through more than one attempt to achieve ceasefire, the most recent of which is what’s called the de-escalation areas,” Assad noted.
 
“It is correct in principle, and we supported it from the beginning because the idea is correct. As to whether it will produce results or not, that depends on the implementation,” the president said.
 
The de-escalation zones, established in several Syrian provinces, including in Idlib, Aleppo and Homs, currently have a mixture of civilians, armed rebels and opposition groups but have excluded ISIS and al-Nusra Front.
 
While optimistic that the initiative will work, Assad also warned that Western countries and their allies in the West Asia could use it to send more logistical and financial support to rebel groups there and undermine the security of the safe zones.
 
Assad said any attempts to stir up trouble in the demarcated areas will fail, adding that Syrian and Russian forces, together with Iran and Hezbollah, “will strike any move on the part of the terrorists if they attempt to violate this agreement.”
 
The Syrian president noted that, so far, the Astana talks have proven to be more productive than Geneva format negotiations which so far produced little results.