Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said Tuesday that his country is willing to share intelligence information with France – but only if Paris changes its policies in the region, Reuters reported.
“If the French government is not serious in its fight against terrorism, we will not waste our time collaborating with a country, government or an institution that supports terrorism,” Assad was quoted as having told the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles.
“You have to first change policy so that it is based on one criteria, to be part of an alliance that joins countries only fighting terrorism and not supporting them,” he added.
On Saturday, following the deadly terror attacks in Paris, Assad claimed that French policy had contributed to the “spread of terrorism” that culminated in the attacks.
In a meeting with a delegation of French lawmakers in Damascus, Assad said France’s “mistaken policies…had contributed to the spread of terrorism,” blaming France for backing certain Syrian rebel groups deemed to be moderate.
“The terrorist attacks that targeted the French capital Paris cannot be separated from what happened in the Lebanese capital Beirut lately and from what has been happening in Syria for the past five years and in other areas,” he said, adding he had “warned against what would happen in Europe for the past three years.”
“We said, don’t take what is happening in Syria lightly. Unfortunately, European officials did not listen,” said Assad.
France has called for a global alliance against Islamic State (ISIS), which claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks.
French warplanes on Sunday evening pounded the city of Raqa, ISIS’s self-proclaimed “capital” in Syria, and continued to do so on Tuesday.
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