Al-Assad: Erdogan Thinks He is Caliph, War on Rebels Long if Their Funding Continues

Local Editor

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lashed out at Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accusing him of behaving like an Ottoman sultan and thinking he is a "caliph".

In an interview with Russian television broadcast Friday, al-Assad sated: "He [Erdogan] personally thinks that he is the new sultan of the Ottoman [empire] and he can control the region as it was during the Ottoman empire, under a new umbrella."
"In his heart he thinks he is a caliph," said al-Assad, referring to the title used by leaders of the Islamic world from the early Arab Islamic dynasties up to the Ottoman empire.

In parallel, al-Assad said that "the mentality of Erdogan - who leads the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party [AKP] - was to blame for collapse of relations between the Damascus regime and Ankara."
"Erdogan has shifted his policy on Syria from zero problems to zero friends," he added, who noted that he last spoke with Erdogan in May 2011.
The Syrian President further accused Erdogan of wanting the Muslim Brotherhood to take over the Middle East region so that "he can guarantee his political future."

Meanwhile, the Syrian President confirmed his future could only be decided through the ballot box.
"The president stay or leave is a popular issue and the only way it can be done is through the ballot boxes," he said.
Speaking in English, al-Assad clarified: "It is not about what we hear. It is about what we can get through that box , which will tell any president to stay or leave very simply."
He further reiterated that "the conflict with rebels could be a long-term war, if they continued to receive support from abroad."

Al-Assad described as "unprecedented" the support which he said the rebels were receiving from abroad in terms of arms, money and political backing.
"So, you have to expect that it is going to be a tough war and a difficult war. You do not expect a small country like Syria to defeat all those countries that have been fighting us through proxies just in days or weeks," he mentioned.
In addition, the Syrian President iterated: "If the support for rebels from abroad stopped, I can tell that in weeks we can finish everything."

"But as long as you have a continuous supply in terrorists, armaments, logistics and everything else, it is going to be a long-term war," he added.
However, al-Assad denied that the country was in civil war as such conflicts should be "based on ethnic problems or sectarian problems".

"You have divisions, but division does not mean civil war," he added, and stressed: "The problem is not between me and the people; I do not have a problem with the people because the United States is against me and the West is against me and many other Arab countries, including Turkey which is not Arab of course, are against me."

"If the Syrian people are against me, how can I be here?!" al-Assad said in the interview.

Moreover, the Syrian President viewed that "the main problem is about terrorism and the support coming from abroad to terrorists to destabilize Syria. This is our war.