Exclusive | India stood with us in difficult times: Syrian foreign minister Fayssal Mekdad

Syrian Foreign ministerFayssal Mekdad has appreciated Indian support to his country amid the decade-long crisis it has been facing.In an exclusive interview with WION correspondent Sidhant Sibal, Mekdad said: "You know at a time humanity doesn't mean anything for western power, we found all human noble concepts prevailing in Indian foreign policy. It's not only Syria but any country suffering."

The foreign minister is on an India visit and held talks with External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar on Friday. New Delhihas offered Lines of Credit worth USD 280 million to Syria for building a power plant and a steel plant in the country. He also slammedTürkiye's involvement in his country, asking Ankarato withdraw from "Syria, and to stop its support to terrorist groups."

The remarks come even as Türkiye launched air raids on Kurdish targets in Iraq and Syria days after Istanbul saw a terror attack.He also made remarks on Iran protests, his country's support to Russia in the Ukraine conflict and ties with Israel. Here is the full interview:

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WION: Could you talk about the situation in Syria?

Fayssal Mekdad: Syria passed through a very difficult time, terrorists from many countries in the world, particularly from western countries invaded the country through neighbouring states like Turkey. Within the framework of the Arab spring, they believed they could influence regime change in Syria. They believed it would take a day, two days, three days or ten days to accomplish, similar to what happened in other Arab countries. However, the situation in Syria was not like that. Syrians loved their homeland, they believed that President Bashar Al Assad was doing a good job, and what Western countries thought about Syria collapsed. This resulted in forced immigration from the country. The government has never ever told people to leave the country. There was pressure from terrorist groups which demolished the country's infrastructure, which forced people to flee, which created refugees. As I told you, we have proof that the camps were built on the Syrian-Turkish border in advance for the expected refugees because they wanted to intensify the situation so that people would flee.

WION: Who had the intention?

Fayssal Mekdad: The terrorist groups and neighbouring countries who were supporting these actions.

WION: Can you list the countries?

Fayssal Mekdad: The US, European countries, and Turkiye among others. I don't want to go back 12 years now because we are trying our best to make the relation with all our neighbours as normal as possible and allow the people who left the country by the force of the terrorist groups to come back.

Now of day, you know who is preventing them to come back, it is the western countries and a few international organisations who are saying all the time, the time is not ripe for the refugees to go back to the country. We in Syria, are telling refugees to return home because they come home, they come to their property, and they come home to their country. No single individual is not allowed to come back, but of course, after the devastation you referred to, people should refer back to the situation that existed before they left.

Before they left, they had houses, property, land, work and everything. With the destructive activity of terrorist groups, some people may have no home, some may need repair, and other people whose houses were not impacted can come back. We promise these people, if you come back, if the government can help, we shall help repair the house. What western countries are saying is out of mind because they want to keep this issue of Syrian refugees as a hanging sword that will prevent people from going back to normalise the situation.

WION: Is the civil war over? Is Syria safe for refugees to go back?

Fayssal Mekdad: There has never been a civil war in Syria. We have to start from that point. It was a terrorist war against Syria. The Syrian people were not fighting each other. Nobody fought against neighbours, against neighbouring villages or cities. It was a terrorist war against all Syrians. Syrians who left the country were forced to do so. Either you leave or you were killed.

Do you know the number of terrorists, it reached 400,000 terrorists coming from different countries mobilised by money, propaganda support and everything. Then we have to fight. Our friends were ready to help us, our Russian friends, our Iranian friends and in a different way our Indian friends. All of them have rallied to overcome this difficult terrorist war against the country. Finally, the majority of the territories of Syria are in the hands of the government and people are coming back. Every day we have many people coming back from Jordon, Lebanon and Turkey.

WION: What is the situation now, how normal is the situation? Please give details as to who is fighting who now, several elements on your territory including foreign elements.

Fayssal Mekdad: Normalcy is returning back to the country. Most of Syria is in a normal state. People are rebuilding, people are growing products, and people are getting back to normal. We must examine the impact of unilateral coercive measures, and unilateral sanctions imposed on other countries by the US. This means if an Indian country wants to help Syria it will be under sanctions.

Now, the situation is coming to normal except for two parts. In the North, Turkey together with Daesh,Jabhat al-Nusra are occupying the northern part of the country. Discussions now on how Turkey should withdraw from this part of the country. When it comes to Daesh and Nusra we are ready to take to our own responsibility. We don't want a full large-scale war between Syria and Turkey, because this will never help Syria or Turkey. We are trying to find a way out. No one can anticipate what will be the action of the Turkish government. The Turkish government is a Muslim Brotherhood government, that is why they support Daesh, they support the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and that is why they support Jabhat Al Nusra. Let's hope that at the end of the game, Turkey will understand that it will be in its interest to withdraw from Syria, and to stop its support of terrorist groups. This is very important because any acts of terrorism will directly be influencing the situation inside Turkey. We are two neighbouring countries. Once you have terrorists in Syria, this means at a certain time they will go back, the birds will go back to roost. Turkey has started to suffer the consequences of the policy of supporting terrorism.

In the northeast, it's the US occupying that part of Syria, supporting terrorist groups, and separatist groups dominating. This is the best place in Syria for the production of oil, agriculture, cotton, and wheat, it is the food basket of Syria. The US is controlling that part, in a way to weaken Syria or to prolong the crisis so that enables its own agents to be active there. It will divert the attention of Syria and Syrians from the main challenges they have to face.

WION: Could you please mention the number of countries these terrorists came from?

Fayssal Mekdad: Terrorists came from several countries, some of them were sent by their own governments or financed by western government or armed by western governments and by those countries in the region. They were thinking these terrorist actions will end in one week, or two weeks as happened in some Arab countries. But then they finally found out that Syrian people support their own government. They are ready to sacrifice to support their own government. In addition, we got help from allies and friends from the international community. Those countries who don't support terrorism. In fact, I cannot claim all the countries were supporting these terrorists. It is said terrorists came from 80-90 countries of the world to Syria. Finally, they are now in a camp controlled by pro-American forces, that camp is in the northeast. It has more than 6,800 terrorists with families concentrated in the camps. You can imagine the magnitude of terrorist action organized against the country, to contribute to its failure, and collapse. They devasted everything, electricity, and agriculture. The US is smuggling our own oil in the part it occupies. The area is full of oil. It is smuggled into neighbouring countries, Turkiye and exported. Imagine what they are doing. In Damascus itself, we have only electricity for two hours and four hours of cut and sometimes electricity doesn't come. Before 2010, the entire Syriawas getting power 24 hours a day, now it's only two hours. In some places, we don't have electricity at all.

That is why we need help from our friends, India, Russia from all those countries who look to help others and eliminate the menace of terrorism that may spread out of Syria. If they succeed in Syria, they will be here in India, in the neighbouring countries. Daesh was in Iraq, Jordan and other countries.

WION: What is the status of Deash, the Islamic state in your country?

Fayssal Mekdad: They still have some elements. They are manipulated by the US, and some European countries. Sometimes they give them enough power that they can operate in Syria, or they send them to other countries. They took these Daesh elements to Afghanistan, taking them to some African countries where they have to fight the wars of Americans, and the French among others. They are spreading everywhere at the instruction of the United States and western countries who claim they are against terrorism but in fact, they have beefed up all the terrorist activities in order to call for a regime change in Syria. I don't want to go into an analysis of why they targeted Syria. In fact, they did not target Syria only. Egypt was the first target, followed by Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia, and Algeria. In Sudan, the battle is still there. You can imagine how devasting these western countries' policies were on different Arab countries.

WION: What will be the fate of the foreign nationals, ISIS kin/women who have been awaiting acceptance from the various countries?

Fayssal Mekdad: We are promising these foreign terrorists should not come alive from Syria. We did our best, but some elements are still present with the support of the US, so we want to work together with all peace-loving countries. Those countries who are active in the fight against terrorism to eliminate all of them. As I said before, the US was sending them all over the world, for regime change or to put political pressure.

WION: How do you view the Arab Spring?

Fayssal Mekdad:It was anything but a spring. The spring season in India and Syria is the most beautiful season. But this was winter, autumn. It is anything but spring. As I said, it was destruction, a war that eliminated hundreds of people, innocent people. People who were uprooted from their homes and forced to leave for other countries, go to sea. Turkey is manipulating the issue of refugees to threaten Europe. If you don't give us 5-10 billion dollars a year, then we will open the gates for these refugees to go to Europe and each year, Europe is being blackmailed into paying the Turkish government huge amounts of money so that they don't use these Syrian refugees to go to European countries. Imagine how much manipulation has been done.

WION: How do you see the ongoing protests in Iran?

Fayssal Mekdad: Let me be frank, we don't interfere in other countries, I was in Tehran two weeks ago. The situation is calming down. But I have to tell you with all honesty, all the tactics being followed and taken forward by the terrorist groups in Syria are happening in the same way in Tehran. Propaganda, social media, writing on walls, accusing the government of killing people.

In Syria we had some of these protestors against the government killing innocent civilians. This was to provoke confrontation between the government, and police and give the impression that the government is killing its own people. This is absolutely not only crazy but out of mind. Only people who are irresponsible can use this pretext to attack another country. The same thing is happening in Iran, and the Iranian government is dealing with it as it must. A big part of the same tactic was followed in Syria against the government.

WION: Can Syria be the balancing power between the Arab world and Iran?

Fayssal Mekdad: This has been our wish, of course, Syria is a pan-Arab believer, we believe in Arab unity. One day Iran's revolution started a new page for cooperation with the Arabs for the liberation of the occupied territories, and the next Iran started to face problems. Those proving developments in Iran is to change the policy of Iran from being the country that supports the rights of the Palestinian people. Western countries pressuring Iran to change policy on Israel and Palestine. That is why so much hate by Israel, west against Iran. We want the best relations between Iran and the Arab countries. We don't find justification for why some Arab countries are finding menace from Iran, not from Israel. We are trying to convince all the time that our Arab brothers' main danger is coming occupation of Palestine by Israel, not Iran which is trying to help Arabs liberate territories from the Syrian Golan or build an independent Palestinian state. We found only the necessity of establishing fruitful cooperation between Iran and Arab countries. If differences arise Syria is ready to intervene. We don't find a justification for the conflict between Iran and Arab countries.

WION: You have been supporting Russia amid the conflict with Ukraine. What is the key reason for that and when do you see a resolution to the conflict?

Fayssal Mekdad:We have taken our stance in supporting Russia, you are correct, we support Russia in the conflict. First, the west advanced towards occupying different countries, after the collapse of the soviet union. When NATO was not satisfied with this achievement, they wanted to bring all of their missiles into the doors of Moscow. This philosophy justifies any action by Russia. Not to mention any rights for Russia to act in favour of Russian people inside the Donbas area.

The double standards of Europeans and Russians. Israel has been occupying our territory for 70 years, and until this minute west has been supporting Israeli occupation, they are not helping in a peaceful settlement. How can we have confidence in them when they are playing a double standard policy? They are against Russia but support it in Israel. We have to be logical in the analysis of the international situation.

Russia has always supported the rights of the Palestinian people, supported the rights of the Syrian government to restore and liberate the occupied Syrian Golan and help Arab countries to bring about technological advancement. Russia has helped us every time while the west has caused the so-called devasting Arab spring in our countries. It is natural if you impacted by western countries, it is natural to support the politics and the understanding of Russia. We have to believe in a multipolar system. The US and Western Europe cannot impose their hegemony and control. By planning to use Ukraine against Russia, and contribute to the collapse of the Russian Federation, the hegemony of the US in international politics will be further deepened. It will be their last effort to control the world, and we are not for that. We are for a multipolar system where India is present, China, Russia is there, where Africa is there, and Latin America is there. We cannot tolerate a unipolar system which culminates in absolute hegemony by the US and its designs on all parts of the world. This is our political and ideological way of understating the developments in Ukraine.

WION: Are the Russians involved in supporting you, are they on the ground?

Fayssal Mekdad:We have a lot of friends, for example, India doesn't have a force. We respect the position of India. On the ground we have Russians helping us. We have Iranian experts, not the army helping our forces because the US and Turkey mobilised countries against Syria. It is natural to have a receptive view of any help coming from Russian or Indian friends. The US is trying to give the impression that Syria is isolated, but Syria is not isolated. Almost all Arab countries with few exceptions of one or two have embassies in Damascus. We have embassies in a number of European countries. Our embassies in Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Rome, Athens, and Budapest are operational. In Asia, our embassies were not impacted. We have an Indian embassy in Damascus. The Syrian embassy in Delhi is functioning. We have embassies in Indonesia, Malaysia, and China.

WION: Where do you see ties with Israel when several Arab countries have formalized ties with the nation?

Fayssal Mekdad:We don't want to deepen the division between Syria and Arab countries. We have to work where we can understand each other. We don't create more conflict but a situation in which Arab- Arab ties become better. Rather than deepening the division. At the recent Arab summit in Algeria, we urged them not to make Syria an issue of contraction between Arab nations. The most important thing is to make the best relations with all Arab countries.

WION: But ties with Israel...

Fayssal Mekdad:They occupy our territories. If they believe in just and comprehensive peace, Syria will be ready to establish comprehensive peace. There will never be peace as long as Israel occupies the Syrian Golan and denies Palestinian rights. We started a peace process in the 1990s, and it became very clear, Israel wants peace and land which is impossible to accept. Despite our best efforts to establish peace, Israel has rejected all our efforts with full support from the US and Europe.

WION: You are here in Delhi, how were your conversations with the Indian side?

Fayssal Mekdad:Even during the toughest times of the Syrian conflict, 2013, 2014, and 2015, when even we in the foreign ministry in Damascus were facing rocket fire by terror groups, the Indian embassy did not hesitate to operate as it does. During those difficult times, some Syrian delegations came to Delhi and a delegation from Delhi came to Damascus.

India has great people and has a correct wise analysis of the situation. It takes us four hours to travel from Damascus to Delhi, so you can understand the proximity of time and space. Whatever is dangerous for Syria is dangerous for India. We are both secular countries, we believe in democratic principles and are determined that strong ties of civilisation and democracy, exchanges go millennia in time. Relations existed deep in history and are going deeper and deeper every day. Syria's people have a great deal of respect for Indians, and wherever I go, Indians welcome us. We have to strengthen the war against terror and cooperate on the establishment of a multipolar system, we believe India should be a permanent member of the UNSC, and we believe India has to play its role, it's a great country with great people. We only found understanding with the Indian sides, I don't find anything different. We appreciate the humanitarian contribution of India. More than half tonne of Rice was sent by India to Syria two years ago when Syrian did not find food, or rice to eat. This is the relationship between these two sisterly countries.

WION: Can we expect a high-level visit from India and a higher-level visit from Syria to Delhi?

Fayssal Mekdad:Don't be surprised to find all that, today I am here, tomorrow I don't who will be in Damascus. We have agreed that these visits will be based on cultural background, economic cooperation, cooperation at the UN, and the war against terrorism. We are an Asian country, you call us western Asian, but here is the heart of Asia. The western wing cannot function without the heart, the heart is India. We are together and agreed to increase economic cooperation. We are enjoying great support in rebuilding the country after the devastation by terrorists. Inditaking on the task of rebuilding Syria. Scholarships are being given by India to rebuild our education system and rebuilt the destroyed schools and other facilities and work together. Both of us believe in the same principle, in the same ideals.

WION:India has offered Lines of Credit worth USD 280 million to Syria for building a power plant and a steel plant in the country. Any details?

Fayssal Mekdad:You know at a time humanity doesn't mean anything to western power, we found all human noble concepts prevailing in Indian foreign policy. It's not only Syria but any country suffering. I will not list the areas in which India is helping Syria, but I can tell you directly that India has spared no effort to assist Syria at this difficult time and move on with the economic and cultural ties that have bonded Syria and India.

WION: How do you see India's role in the larger west Asian region?

Fayssal Mekdad:India has always expressed its political stance very clearly. It is a member of the security council and members of various UN organs. We have found Indian support for our and other just causes. India is not a country that hesitates when the question comes to helping people get free, get democratic and get independent. We welcome the role played by India.

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