BEIRUT — Syria’s vice president has acknowledged that the army cannot defeat the rebel forces trying to topple the regime and called for a negotiated settlement to save the country from ruin.
The rare, candid comments by Farouk al-Sharaa, a longtime close aide to President Bashar Assad’s family, suggested that the regime may be contemplating an exit strategy as rebel forces move closer to the capital, Damascus. He spoke in an interview published Monday by Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar.
“I don’t see that what the security forces and army units are doing will lead to a definitive victory,” al-Sharaa was quoted as saying in the interview conducted in Damascus.
“All these opposition forces can only conclude the battle to topple the regime if their goal is to push the country into chaos and a cycle of violence that has no end,” he added.
Al-Sharaa pushed for a negotiated political settlement that includes the formation of a national unity government.
His comments coincided with a step-by-step peace plan for Syria outlined by Iranian officials Sunday. It would be capped by Syrian elections that presumably could usher in a new leader in Damascus.
Tehran is Assad’s closest and perhaps only remaining regional ally.
It was unclear whether al-Sharaa’s comments were timed to coordinate with the Iranian initiative.
“Despite his rhetoric, Bashar Assad may now be contemplating an exit strategy - one which would allow him to seek refuge abroad with his neck intact,” said Anthony Skinner, an analyst at Maplecroft, a British risk analysis company.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said the statement by al-Sharaa “speaks to the pressure that the Syrian regime is under.”
“Regrettably, however, it hasn’t changed the regime’s behavior, including the brutality it’s inflicting on its own people,” she added.
Al-Sharaa, 73, a longtime loyalist to the Assad family, has been a contentious figure since the start of the uprising.
He appeared in public in late August for the first time in weeks, ending repeated rumors that he had defected. The regime has suffered a string of prominent defections in recent months, though Assad’s inner circle and military have largely kept their cohesive stance behind him.
Assad and his inner circleare predominantly Alawites, a minority sect that is an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The opposition is dominated by the majority Sunni Muslims. Al-Sharaa is a Sunni from the southern town of Daraa, birthplace of the Syrian uprising.
Syrian rebels have made significant tactical advances in the past weeks, capturing air bases and military installations near Syria’s largest city of Aleppo and in the capital Damascus. On Sunday, an Islamist faction took an infantry base in Aleppo, a second army base that was captured from the troops in the northern city in a week.
Violence flared again on Monday across many parts of the country, including at a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus.
U.S. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said the United States is “deeply concerned” by reports that dozens of civilians were killed or wounded in Yarmouk camp as a result of aerial bombardment and fighting between Syrian government forces and armed opposition.
At least eight people were killed in the airstrike on Yarmouk on Sunday, according to Syrian activists.
Ninette Kelley, a Lebanese representative for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, said 22 buses carrying 100 Palestinian families from Yarmouk crossed into Lebanon in the past 24 hours, fleeing the violence.
Separately, Italy’s government said three workers at a Syrian steel plant, including an Italian, have been kidnapped.
The Foreign Ministry did not say where or when the kidnappings occurred.
Also Monday, Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, warned in letters circulated to the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Kimoon that extremist groups could use chemical weapons against the Syrian people and blame the government.
He said the government is “genuinely worried” that foreign countries could provide chemical weapons to armed groups “and then claim they had been used by the Syrian government.” Information for this article was contributed by Barbara Surk, Frances D’Emilio, Albert Aji and Edith M. Lederer of The Associate Press.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 12/18/2012