President Assad slams west’s double standards on humanitarian situation in Syria

Assad made the remarks in a speech during his first visit to quake-hit areas on Friday, according to Arabic-language al-Ahad television network.

"The double standards of the West is nothing new and have existed since six centuries ago."

The Syrian president pledged to "work non-stop" to help the victims of the devastating earthquake and reduce their problems as much as possible.

“The president does not send messages to the people, but rather receives messages from his people to re-apply them, and our message is sincere and honest work,” he said.

Assad also said "Syrians don't talk, they take action," adding that the people of his country have resisted problems over the past 12 years while adhering to their values and will overcome this natural disaster as well. He said this resistance carries a message and “it is more eloquent than any word.”

Assad and his wife visited Aleppo to observe relief and rescue operations on Friday. They also met people who were injured in the devastating earthquake.

The disastrous earthquake hit Turkey and neighboring Syria in the wee hours of Monday. The 7.8-magnitude temblor has so far killed more than 25,000 people in total in the two countries.

Calls are growing for the United States and its allies to remove their sanctions on Syria, which officials and relief workers on the ground say are hampering international aid efforts in the country.

Separately on Friday, Sivanka Dhanapala, the Syria representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said more than five million Syrians may be homeless after the earthquake. “That is a huge number and comes to a population already suffering mass displacement,” he said. “For Syria, this is a crisis within a crisis.”

Dhanapala said the UNHCR has been “rushing aid” to the badly affected parts of Syria, but “it’s been very, very difficult.”

“There are 6.8 million people already internally displaced in the country. And this was before the earthquake,” he said.

Meanwhile, Bouthaina Shaaban, Assad's political and media adviser, lambasted the US and the West for having no regard for people’s lives, saying all their claims about the humanitarian issue in Syria are false.

Shaaban made the remarks in an interview with Russian state-controlled international news television network RT on Saturday.

She said what worsens the already tough circumstances in Syria following the earthquake is the US and European coercive economic measures that prevent the Arab country from developing methods to help people trapped under the rubble. She also said the Americans’ claim that they allowed humanitarian aid to enter Syria is not true, “as Western countries have no humanitarian consideration, and only look at the political situation contrary to what they claim.”

Shaaban said the US is committing a crime against the Syrian people by preventing any country from helping Syria. European countries have not provided any help to the Arab country to deal with the aftermath of the earthquake, she said.

The remarks came after the US said it is going to issue a six-month sanctions exemption for all transactions related to providing disaster relief to Syria.

Damascus has already termed the measure as “misleading,” calling on Washington to immediately and unconditionally lift all anti-Syria sanctions.

Syria has been a target of US sanctions since 1979. Since the start of the crisis in Syria in 2011, the US and its Western allies have dramatically tightened their economic sanctions and restrictions on the Arab country.