Vice-President Hisham Marwa said that Assad’s latest speech is a continuation of the series of lies and an attempt to discredit the opposition and the rebel factions.
“In his speech yesterday, Bashar al-Assad introduced a new definition of citizenship when he said a citizen is the only one who defends the homeland, not who has a Syrian nationality or passport,” Marwa said. “True citizenship is defending Syrians against the aggression of the Assad regime and its allies,” he added.
“Assad is trying through these claims to justify his regime’s decision to grant Syrian nationality to the foreign fighters and mercenaries who are fighting alongside his forces. But we in the Syrian Coalition and the revolutionary forces will not allow this decision to materialize, as the granting of Syrian nationality to these fighters and mercenaries is a crime in itself.”
Marwa stressed that “Assad’s speech was military rather than a political one, as he spoke about army defectors, draft dodgers, recruitment reserves and so forth. Undoubtedly, this is an acknowledgement of a severe shortage in manpower and reflects the hardships the Assad regime is facing in drawing new recruits. The Assad regime is suffering in spite of the flow of foreign militias coming from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Central Asia, and more recently from Africa and Yemen.
“The most prominent fact that the Assad regime is trying to escape and should be clear in the mind of everyone who reads Syrian scene is that the Assad regime is retreating on many fronts and that a military solution in Syria is impossible.”
Marwa points out that any further delay in reaching a political solution means more bloodshed. Only a political solution based on the Geneva I Communique, which calls for the forming of transitional governing body with full executive powers. (Source: Syrian Coalition)
