BEIRUT, December 16 (RIA Novosti) – Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa has said that neither government forces nor the opposition can win a military victory in the conflict that has raged in Syria for 21 months.
“The opposition cannot win through an armed confrontation just as [President Bashar al-Assad’s] forces cannot,” he said in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar to be published on Monday.
It is the first statement in several months from the vice president, who has on a number of occasions had to deny fleeing Syria. Sharaa, a Sunni muslim, had been viewed by the Arab League as a potential compromise figure to replace Assad, an Alawite muslim, when mass demonstrations against Assad’s rule first broke out.
