Speaking to Reuters on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Syrian war, Assad‘s long-serving U.N. ambassador Bashar Ja‘afari said his president was ready to work with the United States and others to combat terrorism in the Middle East.

`We don‘t want any vacuum in the country that would create chaos such as happened in Libya and Iraq and … Afghanistan,´ he said. „President Assad can deliver because he is a strong president. He rules over a strong institution, which is the Syrian army. He has resisted pressure for four years.“