His Majesty King Abdullah speaks to BBC’s Lyse Doucet in an interview in London on Monday (Photo by Yousef Allan
Responding to a question during an interview with the BBC in London on the current situation in Syria and what he would do were he in Assad’s position, King Abdullah said: “I believe, if I were in his shoes, I would step down”.
“I would step down and make sure whoever comes behind me has the ability to change the status quo that we’re seeing,” the King added, noting that Assad should also develop an ability to reach out and start a new phase of Syrian political dialogue.
The Jordan News Agency, Petra, said in its report that what the King stated was not a direct call on Assad to stand down, but rather a response to a hypothetical question.
The Monarch indicated that if Assad was to step down, he should do so in parallel with a change in the way the regime deals with the people, according to a transcript of the interview.
“Again I don’t think the system allows for that, so if Bashar has the interest of his country, he would step down, but he would also create an ability to reach out and start a new phase of Syrian political life,” he told the BBC.
When asked if Assad should step aside, King Abdullah said he does not believe the Syrian president has bad intentions.
“You know with my discussions with Bashar I’ve gotten to know him fairly well, and I honestly believe that he has reform in his blood,” he said.
“The vision that he has for Syria on the times that I’ve met him was very encouraging so I think that the challenge is, does the system allow for reform?”
“So even as you said, if Bashar was not on the scene, if the regime brings in someone else, does that person get it and realise that the world has changed and that is where I have my doubts,” the Monarch highlighted.
“But if you are going to remove one person and put one person in, we will continue to see more of the same,” King Abdullah underlined.
Regarding Syria’s call for an emergency summit, the King noted that he has spoken twice to Assad earlier this year to express “our frustration and concerns over what is going over in Syria”.
“And I was attempting to reach out – not that Jordan by any means has a prefect story for reaching out in national dialogue. We haven’t seen any deaths on our streets and it was an attempt to see how we could help.”
“I even sent the chief of the Royal Court in late spring to see him again to see if we can work together in bringing down the violence in Syria. And it became very clear to me that they are not interested in dialogue with Jordan and a lot of other countries unfortunately,” the King added.
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