In a wide-ranging interview with NBC News on Wednesday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad not only expressed confidence that Syria's civil war could be won within months with the help from Russian intervention, but he also accused the U.S. of not being "serious" in wanting to see ISIS' defeat.
"They're not serious," Assad said, according to
NBC News.
He added that the use of "illegal" U.S. airstrikes against ISIS in Syria is "counterproductive" compared to Russia's "legal" firepower, which has "tipped the scales against the terrorists."
Assad showed on a strikingly new tone from last year when he was short in firepower against the Islamic terrorist group and confidently told NBC News that "the Syrian Army has made a lot of advancement recently" and "it won't take more than a few months" to win the war.
He added, "The Russian support of the Syrian army has tipped the scales against the terrorists," and noted that "it was the crucial factor."
His interview comes just ahead of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry traveling to Moscow on Thursday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the hopes of making a deal that could force Assad out of power.
But, according to The Associated Press, Assad is not concerned, "because their politics, I mean, the Russian politics, is not based on making deals. It's based on values."
He added that the same cannot be held true for the U.S., a country in which Assad claims has a lack of political will and a different end goal.
"The reality is telling that, since the beginning of the American airstrikes, the terrorism has been expanding and prevailing," Assad said. "It only shrinked when the Russians intervened."
He added, "We wanted to defeat those terrorists, while the United States wanted to manage those groups in order to topple the government in Syria."
According to The Associated Press, Russia has been a major ally of Assad while the United States, which backs rebels seeking to overthrow Assad, has called for him to leave power.
Kerry heads to Moscow seeking greater Russian cooperation in the war against Islamic State militants in Syria, but he faces strong opposition from U.S. defense and intelligence officials who argue that Washington and Moscow have diametrically opposed objectives in the country.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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