WarSclerotic

Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Sunday his country had foiled Western designs to topple his regime, even though his army has not yet won the fight in Syria’s six and a half year-old insurgency.

In a televised address, Assad said there are signs of victory in the long civil war, but the “battle continues, and where we go later and it becomes possible to talk about victory … that’s a different matter.”

He did not elaborate on that point.

Speaking before dozens of Syrian diplomats in Damascus, Assad praised Russia, Iran, China and the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah for supporting his government during the conflict.

He said Syria would look east when it comes to political, economic and cultural relations.

“The direct support of our friends, politically, economically and militarily, made our advance on the ground greater and the losses of war less. Therefore, they are our partners in these achievements on the road to crush terrorism,” Assad said.

He vowed to pursue an offensive in Syria’s vast deserts, where he is backed by Iranian-funded militias and heavy Russian air power that have allowed his troops to capture significant ground from Islamic State insurgents on several major fronts.

His government hopes to steal a march on U.S.-backed militias in the attack on Islamic State’s last major Syrian stronghold, the Deir ez-Zor region that extends to the Iraqi border. The eastward thrust, unthinkable two years ago when Assad’s regime seemed in danger, has underlined his ever more confident position and the dilemma facing Western leaders who still want him to leave power in a negotiated transition.

“Our army is achieving one gain after another every day to eliminate terrorists. We will continue to attack terrorists until the last terrorist on Syrian land [is gone],” Assad said.

He said his country welcomes the Russian-brokered local cease-fire deals, which Moscow is seeking to extend, as these would end bloodshed and bring an end to the insurgency, with rebels who agree to lay down arms being pardoned.

“The idea of these de-escalation zones is to stop the bloodletting … and the eviction of the armed groups handing over their weapons and the return of normalcy,” Assad said. “We have an interest in the success of this initiative.”

Russia has recently deployed military police beside army checkpoints in southwest Syria and in Eastern Ghouta near Damascus to help ensure calm in deals it has worked out with Syrian rebel groups.

Negotiations are under way with mainstream armed groups and local councils to broker a truce in the besieged northern Homs countryside, where rebels have sought Russia’s intervention to get humanitarian aid to trapped civilians.

Rebel leaders are also calling for the release of thousands of detainees held in government security prisons.

Many mainstream rebel groups have been skeptical about Moscow’s ultimate aims in Syria and cast doubt on its readiness to put genuine pressure on Assad to abide by local truces.

They also worry that these cease-fire deals are a means for Assad’s army and its allies to redeploy in other areas to recover territory by using firepower freed by the truces.

Rebel factions have already accused the army and Iranian-backed militias of cease-fire violations in Eastern Ghouta. The army continues to pound residential areas in rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus, witnesses say.

Assad, whose government brands many of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army rebel groups as “terrorists,” has said his army retains the right to continue to attack insurgents.

However, Assad has condemned the U.S.-inspired “safe zones” that President Donald Trump earlier this year said he hoped to achieve with Russia, saying such a plan would only “give cover to terrorists.”

Assad also said that Syria still sees Israel as “an enemy who robs Palestinians and Arabs of their lands.”

Syria maintains its traditional position of “supporting the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause. We will continue to oppose the Zionist occupation and we will stand by all Palestinian resistance groups wherever they may be,” he stressed.

The comment was seen as a hint to Hamas, which left its Damascus headquarters shortly after the 2011 civil war erupted after siding with the rebels trying to unseat Assad.

The embattled president also refused any security cooperation with Western nations or the reopening of their embassies, unless they cut ties with opposition and insurgent groups.

“Let’s be clear. There will be no security cooperation nor opening of embassies or even a role for some countries that say that they want to play a role in ending the crisis in Syria before they clearly and frankly cut their relations with terrorism,” Assad said. “At that point, maybe we can speak about opening embassies.”