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World :: Assad predicts defeat for rebels

Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, has said opposition fighters will not be victorious in their fight against his government, but that the "door to dialogue" remains open.

His comments to Egyptian weekly magazine Al-Ahram al-Araby will be published on Friday.

"The armed groups exercise terrorism against the state. They are not popular within society ... they will not be victorious in the end," he was quoted as saying.

The release of Assad's comments came as at least 54 people were killed when an air strike hit a fuel station in Syria's northern province of al-Riqqa on Thursday.

Speaking from his office in the heart of the Syrian capital Damascus, Assad said "change cannot be achieved through foreign intervention".

"Both sides of the equation are equal and political dialogue is the only solution. Violence, however, is not allowed ... and the state will not stand with its hands tied in the face of those who bear arms against it," he told Al-Ahram al-Araby.

'Friends of Syria'

Assad said he was neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the Brahimi mission.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the joint UN-Arab League negotiatior, who met Assad last week in Damascus, said his visit confirmed that the situation was "extremely dangerous and escalating".

"I welcome dialogue with the national opposition but those who choose arms have put themselves in confrontation with the Syrian Arab army," Assad told Al-Ahram al-Araby.

He also admitted there was corruption and mistakes had been made.

In another development, diplomats from more than 60 nations and the Arab League met in The Hague, Netherlands, on Thursday to toughen and improve co-ordination of sanctions against Assad's regime.

"We need vigorous implementation," Uri Rosenthal, Netherlands foreign minister, told the opening of the Friends of Syria working group.

"Sanctions will only have an impact if they are carried out effectively. That is how we can make a difference."

The Friends of Syria group has already held three meetings at ministerial level in Tunis, Istanbul and Paris. Another is planned in Morocco in October and another later in Italy.