Damascus, June 17: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview aired on Thursday that Israel’s “pyromaniac” government had raised the risk of a regional war with its deadly raid on a Gaza aid flotilla.
The May 31 attack that killed nine Turkish activists had “destroyed any chance for peace in the near future,” Assad told the BBC in an interview.
He said the incident had “proved that this (Israeli) government is another pyromaniac government, and you cannot achieve peace with such (a) government.”
Asked if the incident had raised the chances of war, he said: “Definitely.”
Assad added that even before the raid, Syria did not see the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a partner for peace.
“We definitely don’t have a partner, we know this. With this government (it) is something different from any previous Israeli government,” Assad said.
The nine activists were killed in the pre-dawn raid by Israeli naval commandos, sent in after the aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip in violation of an Israeli blockade refused to turn back.
Under intense international pressure Israel has set up an inquiry panel to probe the circumstances of the raid.
Assad also denied that Syria was sending weapons to the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, which fought a month-long war with Israel in 2006.
Israel’s security cabinet met again on Thursday to discuss easing the four-year blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip amid mounting pressure following its seizure of the aid fleet, Israeli media reported.
—Agencies