Bush aides ‘ fanatics’ and warmongers: Assad

PUTRAJAYA: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose country is facing sanctions by the United States, Thursday described members of President George W. Bush’s government as “fanatics” and warmongers. Assad told a summit meeting of leaders from around the Islamic world that the September 2001 attacks on the United States “provided the opportunity and pretext for a group of fanatics and ill-intentioned people to attack human values and principles.” “Those fanatics revealed their brutal vision of human society and started to market the principle of force instead of dialogue, oppression instead of justice, and racism instead of tolerance,” he told a summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). “They even began to create an ugly illusionary enemy which they called ‘Islam’,” he said. Without referring directly to his own country, Assad continued, “they violate sovereignty, impose economic sanctions, invade countries culturally.” Assad told the OIC summit. —AFP

Home | Foreign