MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Assange told Greek ThePressProject news site on Monday:
“We have an interesting speculation about the refugee movement. We looked through our cables and so the speculation was this: occasionally opponents of a country would engage in strategic depopulation, which is to decrease the fighting capacity of a government.”
He added that in the case of Syria, those who fled the country were predominantly citizens belonging to the middle class – engineers, managers, bureaucrats – “precisely, the classes that are needed to keep the government functioning.”
“Encouraging [them] to flee Syria by Germany saying they will accept many-many refugees, and by Turkey taking nearly three million refugees thus significantly weakens the Syrian government,” Assange stressed adding that “regardless of whether there is a design behind it the forces engaged in trying to overthrow the Syrian government must be happy with the results.”
Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011. The conflict between government forces and rebels, exacerbated by jihadist groups active in the region, has forced some 4 million Syrians to flee to neighboring countries, with many heading further to Europe.
