Assad Regime Says Conflict With Rebels in Syria Has Reached a Stalemate

No Winner: Neither the opposition nor the government is strong enough to win this bloody conflict, which has raged on for two years and claimed over 100,000 lives. Image by Haaretz

By Haaretz/ Reuters September 19, 2013

Fighting between Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces and the opposition has reached a stalemate, and the regime plans on calling for a ceasefire at an upcoming conference in Geneva, Syria’s deputy prime minister has told the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper.

In the interview published Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said that neither the opposition nor the government is strong enough to tip the balance in the conflict, which has raged for the past two years, and led to the loss of more than 100,000 lives.

“Neither the armed opposition nor the regime is capable of defeating the other side,” the newspaper cited him as saying. “This zero balance of forces will not change for a while.”

Jamil,who told the newspaper his comments in the interview represented the government’ position, also said that the country’s economy has suffered heavily as a result of the civil war.

If Syria’s rebel forces were to okay a ceasefire, it would have to be “under international observation,” the newspaper cited Jamil as saying. Monitors of UN peacekeepers from “friendly or neutral countries” could fill that role, he said.

The upcoming conference in Geneva on Syria’s future, is dubbed Geneva 2. The first was in June last year. Syria’s opposition forces leaders have said they won’t attend the conference unless Assad quits his post.

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