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"I support military intervention because I know the nature of this regime," Nawaf al-Fares told CNN. "This regime will only go by force." Photo by CNN
Syria's envoy to Baghdad, who defected to the opposition last week and was subsequently kicked out of office, says only force can free his country.
"I support military intervention because I know the nature of this regime," Nawaf al-Fares told CNN. "This regime will only go by force."
"I was at the top of the Syrian regime," Fares said in his first interview with a U.S.-based TV network since his defection. "But what happened in the last year during the holy revolution, all of the killing, the massacres, the refugees, and the declaration of war by Bashar al-Assad against the Syrian people, stopped any kind of hope for reform or real change, which had been promised previously by Bashar al-Assad.
"I tried during the last year and a half to convince the regime to change its treatment of the people," Fares added. "But I wasn't successful, so I decided to join the people."
Nawaf al-Fares is the first senior Syrian diplomat to abandon the government of President Bashar al-Assad and the latest in a string of high-profile defectors.
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