President Assad Questions Whether Trump Can Deliver on Campaign Promises
In an interview with Portuguese broadcaster Radio e Televisao de Portugal (RTP), aired on Tuesday, November 15, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad questioned if president-elect Donald Trump could deliver on his campaign promises.
In an interview at the presidential palace in Damascus, journalist Paulo Dentinho asks for Assad’s reaction to Trump’s victory, to which Assad tells him: “We always say we have wishful thinking that the Unites States would be unbiased, respect the international law, doesn’t interfere in other countries around the world, and of course to stop supporting terrorists in Syria."
When asked whether he was ready to work with Trump against the Islamic State, Assad said: “This is promising, but can he deliver?…That’s why for us it’s still dubious whether he can do or live up to his promises or not. That’s why we are very cautious in judging him, especially as he wasn’t in a political position before. So, we cannot tell anything about what he’s going to do, but if, let’s say if he is going to fight the terrorists, of course we are going to be ally, natural ally in that regard with the Russian, with the Iranian, with many other countries who wanted to defeat the terrorists.”
This is Dentinho’s second interview with Assad. Dentinho’s first interview aired on RTP in March 2015.
A full transcript of the interview was provided by Syrian state media SANA and RTP (in Portuguese). Credit: YouTube/Syrian Presidency via Storyful
