“Europeans have begun feeling the inconvenience of their political stance, based on their actions against the Syrian state,” Zoubi told RIA Novosti.
According to the minister, the reason for this is “not the recognition of their own erroneous actions but a fear for their own safety” after January’s terror attack against French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Damascus has, right from the beginning of the conflict “warned that such a political approach to Syria will bear consequences like these,” Zoubi said.
“European leaders thought that the Syrian government would fall apart, that the political foundations of the government would fall,” Zoubi said, adding that “today, they have realized that things are not as they thought.”
The Syrian war began in 2011, after widespread protests against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government turned into an armed rebellion. Assad’s forces are currently battling numerous militias, including the notoriously brutal Islamic State, which has seized vast territories in Syria and neighboring Iraq.
An international coalition, led by the United States, has been carrying out airstrikes against the militants in Iraq since last August, expanding the attacks to include targets in Syria in September, without coordinating its efforts with the Syrian government.
