Assad tells Putin he won’t flee like Ukraine leader
Embattled president, said to be ‘in top athletic form,’ predicts civil war will be over by the end of the year
By AFP and ToI Staff 7 April 2014, 10:58 pm
A former Russian prime minister who recently met Bashar Assad said Monday that the Syrian president told him he would not flee like the deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.
“The Syrian president told me: ‘
Tell Putin that I am no Yanukovych and that I will not go,'” Sergei Stepashin told reporters in Moscow after meeting the Syrian president last week.
Assad was referring to Moscow-backed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted by a pro-European popular uprising in February and fled to Russia.
“Unlike Yanukovych, he has no enemies in his inner circle…
and he certainly knows what he is doing,” Stepashin said.
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