Bashar al-Assad vows to retake Syria by force

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to retake the entire country by force, as world powers struggle to secure a lasting ceasefire.

In a rare interview, President told the AFP news agency that the involvement of regional and international forces “means that the solution will take a long time and will incur a heavy price”.

“I have fully believed in negotiations and in political action since the beginning of the crisis,” he said. “However, if we negotiate, it does not mean that we stop fighting terrorism. The two tracks are inevitable in Syria.”

He also warned that there is a risk that Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which both back Syrian rebel forces, would intervene militarily in Syria.

The president spoke shortly before diplomats at the current Syria peace talks in Munich agreed on a “temporary cessation of hostilities” in Syria’s civil war within a week that will not apply to Islamist groups Islamic State and the al-Nusra Front.

The deal appeared to be the result of a compromise between the US, which had wanted an immediate stop to fighting, and Russia, which had proposed one to start on March 1. 

“The real test is whether or not all the parties honour those commitments and implement them,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday morning.

Discussions between the Syrian regime and anti-government rebels are due to re-start on 25 February after they had broken down rapidly last month.

Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air strikes, have almost encircled rebels in parts of the northern city of Aleppo and cut off their main supply route from the Turkish border.

Assad’s troops are also closing in on the north-eastern city of Idlib, which is held by Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), the Islamist coalition that includes the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar ash-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa.

Assad dismissed recent UN accusations that his government was guilty of war crimes, after human rights investigators found that his government had carried out a state policy of extermination against thousands of detainees.

He said those accusations were ‘politicised” and said that UN investigations had not provided any evidence.

More than 250,000 people have been killed and around 11 million displaced in almost five years of fighting in Syria, which partly sparked the European refugee crisis.

Assad accused European governments of having caused the migration crisis "by giving cover to terrorists in the beginning and through sanctions imposed on Syria".

"I would like to ask every person who left Syria to come back," he said. "They would ask 'why should I come back? Has terrorism stopped?'."