Assad ready to resign if crisis ended

The Syrian leader made it clear that he ignored Washington’s demands that he should resign because he considered the US a country hostile towards Syria.

He also said that he had become president in order to serve his country.

Commenting on the results of the conference in Geneva on Saturday, the Syrian president found them satisfying. The conference’s final resolution says that it’s up to the Syrians to decide their country’s future.

Assad regrets downing of Turkish jet 

In an interview with the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet published on Tuesday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad expressed regret at the downing by his country's defence forces of a Turkish fighter jet on June 22

"The plane was flying down the air corridor which has been used by the Israeli airforce in the past on three occasions," he said, but added that he regretted the incident - which had further fuelled the tensions between the two former allies - "100 percent".

Assad rejected Turkey's accusations that the Syrian defence forces had intentionally shot down the Turkish F-4 jet, which was on a training mission over the Mediterranean.

"A country at war always acts like this, this plane was flying at a very low altitude and was shot down by anti-aircraft defences which mistook it for an Israeli plane, which attacked Syria in 2007."

He said the soldier who shot down the plane had no radar and could not know to which country the plane belonged.

Assad sent his condolences to the families of the two pilots of the downed plane, who have not been found.

"If this plane had been shot down in international airspace (as maintained by Ankara) we would not have hesitated to apologise," he said.

Inerfax, AFP