Bashar Assad: I will live and die in Syria

Alawite ruler says world cannot afford high cost of intervening in civil war

Syrian President Bashar Assad told a Russian TV station on Thursday that he would never agree to leave his country.

“I am Syrian, made in Syria, and I will live and die in Syria,” the embattled president reportedly said.

Assad was likely responding to statements made by British PM David Cameron in Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday, where he suggested that if Assad wanted to leave he would be assured safe passage.

Assad’s possible departure from Syria has been an often discussed solution to the ongoing Syrian civil war, which has captured headlines around the world and claimed up to 36,000 lives, according to the Syrian opposition.

Cameron said that the international community should consider anything “to get that man out of the country and to have a safe transition in Syria.”

Speaking to Russia Today, Assad said on Thursday that he doesn’t see the West initiating military intervention in Syria as a solution to the conflict.

“I think that the cost of a foreign invasion of Syria, if it happens, would be bigger than the entire world can bear… This will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” he said, according to Reuters.

“I do not believe the West is heading in this direction, but if they do, nobody can tell what will happen afterwards,” he continued.