Assad made the remarks in an interview with Denmark’s TV2 station, whose excerpts were released on Thursday.
Some opposition groups and relief agencies have recently claimed that Syrian and Russian jets have been hitting civilian sites in the contested northwestern city of Aleppo, which has been divided since 2012 between government forces in the west and foreign-sponsored militants in the east.
Over the past few months, Syria’s second largest city has witnessed intense fighting and turned into a frontline battleground.
“To say that this is our aim as a government, (that) we give the orders to destroy hospitals or schools or to kill civilians, this is against our interest,” Assad said, noting, however, that mistakes are sometimes committed by individuals in any war.
The media hype over the Damascus government’s anti-terror battles in Aleppo comes against the backdrop of ongoing army gains against the Takfiri groups operating in the city.
The Syrian president further underlined that if the accusations of “committing … atrocities” were true, he could not have remained in office.
Elsewhere in his comments, Assad said that Europe is now absent from the international political scene as it is following in Washington’s footsteps.
Some European countries even “do not dare to take their own independent path in politics,” he added.
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