Transcript by Rawan Mahmasa:
Interviewer:
After eleven years of war, Syria has been the chessboard for geopolitical and neighboring rivalries. However, there are signs that the war on Syria could be reaching its Endgame, with increased diplomatic engagement between Arab States and the Assad government alongside China offering relief from U. S. Sanctions. Alternatively, has the clock turned back on Syria, given last week’s US mass killing in the country and a resurgence of ISIS? Joining me now from Damascus to discuss the way ahead for the Syrian government is Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, political adviser to President Bashar Al Assad. Thank you so much, Bouthaina, for coming back on every other week or so, UK US, EU nation armed warplanes are bombing your country. I better ask just quickly because there’s no reporting of it in our mainstream news in NATO nations on television. How effective are the air defense systems against the Israeli attacks, which Israel, of course, says is to fight terrorism?
Dr. Shaban:
Thank you very much for hosting me for RT today. I think we are trying our best to defend ourselves against Israeli aggression and American aggression also in our country, because unfortunately, Israel, Turkey and the US are striking in different areas of Syria for different reasons that they have, but they are all occupying forces. Our air system most of the time hits the attacking missiles and prevents them from reaching their goals. But the problem is that you don’t see any condemnation of an aggression by Israel to a sovereign, independent country. And this is the question how that we accept this without any condemnation, even what happened in the northeast of Syria, even what Turkey is doing by occupying our land in the northwest and also causing demographic horrible demographic changes. And we don’t hear any word from any Western country who speak about sovereignty, democracy and human rights to condemn all these actions.
Interviewer:
Turkey, of course, also saying it’s all about terrorism that they’re combating. It’s reported there are 900 US soldiers. There were reports of the SAS in your country that were intercepted, I understand, after they neared ISIS territory. Do you have any figures on the numbers of US soldiers and do you have any numbers on British SAS in Syria?
Dr. Shaban:
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to neglect your question about terrorism and we can get back to it because this is what our military forces are doing for the last eleven years. And the pretext of the US that they are here to fight terrorism is absolutely not true because all that they do is really try to support terrorists. And I don’t think asking the number matter how many US soldiers are on the ground because they are using also local people and local forces for two reasons. First, to cause demographic changes in the country in their mind in preparation for partition of the country. And second, they use their airplanes and to cause the Arab in the region to flee the region. And this is exactly what happened in Hasaka. I’m sorry to say that all the news that came out from American media about the northeast of Syria and the last two weeks has no grain of truth in it at all. The truth is that the US forces are transferring some of ISIS terrorists from the prison and from Hasaka into al Tanf, the American base on the Iraqi border, and into Shaddadi And they are destroying hundreds of Arab houses in Hasaka and causing by the report of UNICEF the flee of over 50 thousand Syrian people, women and children, out of their houses in preparation to giving these areas to the Kurds so that they can create a Kurdish state similar to Kurdistan in Iraq.
Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban :
So all the media that they put about rebellion in the prison and about destroying the houses because they feared that there were some terrorists in these houses. All of this really has no grain of truth at all. I’m telling you exactly what happened and why did it happen?
Interviewer:
Yes, the reports across NATO and nation media said that ISIS broke out their own prisoners out of Hasaka prison. But as you know, the reports here are all of the success of Joe Biden, who said that an ISIS leader blew himself up, killing all the women and children. Abu Abraham Al Hashemi AlQuraishy you believe he was previously de facto backed by the British and the United States before he was killed last week?
Dr. Shaaban:
Not only I believe really we know because the Tannif base, for example, our forces were about to liberate the area completely and we almost destroyed all that terrorists when American airplanes and probably British, I don’t know, started to shell our forces and kept the terrorists there in the camp. Also, Al Houl camp in the northeast of Syria has over 60,000 of foreign children, women coming from France, Belgium, Britain, from all over Europe, actually. And nobody does anything about that. Quite the contrary. They are protected by what they call themselves the allied forces. They call themselves allied forces, that they are fighting ISIS, but they are allied forces in support of ISIS and in support of others to try and partition Syria. This is their ultimate goal.
Interviewer:
Those figures are disputed. And after all, then why would Biden have killed this man if he is secretly supporting ISIS, which I should say the Russian intelligence service SVR claims as well in the past 24 hours that they are actually planning US intelligence to target Damascus and Lattakia , UN are employing ISIS insurgents?
Dr. Shaaban:
I think probably the role of this man is over. They probably use him to the extent that they can’t use him anymore. Nobody heard of him before. They make a big blow about his importance and about that he was so crucial to ISIS, nobody heard of him before. And I think they killed him when he is no longer useful. But I will ask this question to all your viewers. If the United States and the allied forces are in Syria, in order to fight terrorism and the Syrian Army , its main objective is to fight and end terrorism of our land. Why can’t we do it together? If we are fighting the same enemy, why can’t we fight terrorism together? That’s the question I want to call.
Interviewer:
Well, they would answer that the Syrian government is responsible for terrorism. What was this? A Syrian network for human rights here in the UK claims 130,000 have been killed by your government since March 2021. And of course there’s that case in Germany of branch 251 of Syrian intelligence. That’s why they can’t cooperate with you.
Dr. Shaaban:
All these reports honestly are absolutely baseless. Absolutely baseless. My government would support terrorism. Syria was known to be one of the safest countries in the world before 2011. What about all this? Why do we have now 60,000 people in Al Houl town? From all nationalities, from China, from Europe, from all nationalities who sent all these terrorists? Who paid for them? Who is feeding them? Who is taking care of them in that time? 60,000 people a day? Who’s paying for all these? Certainly it’s not the Syrian government. It’s not Syria.
Interviewer:
Who do you think it is?
Dr. Shaban:
It’s the allied forces. Of course they are the Americans and the allied countries are the ones who are maintaining and keeping these people in the camp. Because they refuse to take them back home and because they allow them to come. How did they allow them to come into Syria to fight with the terrorists?
Interviewer:
Well, Joe Biden has revoked licenses for Delta Crescent Energy. I know Trump said that the US have outwardly wanted to steal your oil SVR saying what? 3 million barrels extracted a month? How much oil do you claim is being stolen by the… well… Effectively with the help of the Biden administration?
Dr. Shaban:
Well, as in all our oil, all our wheat, you see them at noon under the sunlight, hundreds of American or British trucks, I don’t know. They are carrying our oil into Iraq and then or into Turkey and then selling it themselves. They are carrying our wheat. They’re carrying our cotton, and they’re bombarding our bridges and leaving the Syrian people deprived of their natural resources, of their natural wealth. How could a country that claims to be the bacon of freedom in the world steal the wealth and the resources of another country with nobody complaining and nobody even mentioning that.
Interviewer:
But the Americans deny it. And Biden, after all, is considering a pipeline for Lebanon through Syria, some degree of rapprochement, arguably under the Biden administration, that finally, you’re starting to respect Syrian sovereignty.
Dr. Shaaban:
No, they don’t respect Syrian sovereignty. If they respect Syrian sovereignty, they should withdraw their forces because their forces in Syria are occupying forces are forces of occupation. And the first condition to respect sovereignty of any country is not to have occupied forces on its soil. Yes, you can’t get rid of them.
Interviewer:
I mean, short of a nuclear strike, how are you supposed to get rid of all these foreign forces on your land?
Dr. Shaban:
We are going to resist them. We definitely will get through we get through the false occupying forces in our country, but we will do it at the right time with the right possibilities. That’s why they are depriving us also for our oil and our wheat, so that we don’t have the resources to fight them. But we will.
Interviewer:
Dr. Bounthaina Shaaban, I’ll stop you.
There.
More from President Bashar Al Assad’s adviser after this break. Plus, is Scotland Yard done for? We investigate new findings of racism, misogyny and bullying in London. The Metropolitan Police 23 years to the month since an inquiry into the racially motivated murder of black British teenager Stephen Lawrence found the force to be institutionally racist. All this and more coming up in part two of Going Underground.
Welcome back. I’m still here with Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, political adviser to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. What about heating oil for this winter? Britain says it’s not for Joe Biden’s oil sanctions. Your government claims $100 billion lost in oil revenues, let alone the stolen oil. What do you make of Britain? I mean, famously, it sees that vessel delivering oil. Biden avowedly doesn’t want oil from Iran coming to your country. What’s the level of suffering this winter for the Syrian people because of cold?
Dr. Shaban:
The level of suffering action is huge. And I really personally believe that the sanction it’s not sanctions, only it’s unilateral coercive measures taken by the US and by the UK against Syria. They are really criminal against the Syrian people. They really are a form of collective punishment against the Syrian people. Of course, they’re suffering.
Interviewer:
In NATO nation media.
They cover it that the poverty is all the cause of the Assad government. And in fact, one recent report was saying that your government is a key drug trafficker of Captagon drugs and is the center of the drug trade in the Middle East.
Dr. Shaban:
Well, I really do not take any of the reports written about my country, whether it is about chemical weapons or about captive on the drugs or about anything, because it has proven through the last ten years that the media war against my country is part of the terrorist war that has been launched against my country. And from day one, they have been trying to distort the reputation of the Syrian government and of the Syrian people and of Syria. Look at what happened in OPCW. I mean, they wrote false reports. They ignored all the proof that came to..
Interviewer:
They maintained there was no chemical attack.
Which of course Britain used as a reason to bomb your country.
Dr. Shaaban:
The lady who was responsible for freeing Syria of chemical weapons has submitted a report in the UN saying that Syria is now free of chemical weapons. It was in 2015 that time. And now they started to invent all these stories and many people from the OPCW itself has given evidence that they came to Syria and they wrote reports and their reports were ignored and there were false reports that were submitted instead.
Interviewer:
Well, every piece of NATO nation media, TV broadcasting, journalists and governments obviously maintained that there were chemical attacks, which is why they had a reason to aerially bombard Damascus. Let’s get on to some good news for Syria, arguably. How is it suddenly you’re making alliances with the UAE, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, all across the Arab world suddenly and you’ve signed the Belt and Road initiative documents, memorandum of understanding with the Chinese government?
Dr. Shaban:
Well, it’s not so sudden after all. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon are all Arab countries. We speak the same language we have the same culture.
Interviewer: they are all allied to Israel after the Abraham records.
Dr. Shaban:
I know, but they said that they want to be friendly with all parties. They don’t want to alienate anyone. But this is their choice. This is their decision. But we have nothing to do with that. But they are the ones who stopped Syria from functioning in the Arab League. And if now they want Syria to get back, they are making probably introductory steps for Syria to get back into the Arab… the natural thing to do because Syria is a very important Arab country and it should be part of the Arab world. As for signing the One Road, One Belt, we have very good relations with the China. It has been discussed between the Chinese authorities and the Syrian authorities for quite a while. And we reached an understanding, a memo of understanding, and it was signed. Don’t forget, after that Syria was a major spot in the historical Silk Road. So I don’t think there could be a Silk road without Syria and the Chinese government has supported us with vaccines with political stands at the UN and the security Council like Russia as well. So these are friendly countries with whom we have good relations and our relations are only ascent in as many fields.
Interviewer:
Obviously, the British and American governments reviewed all your allegations. We invite them on. Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, thank you.
Thank you very much.
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