Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that his responsibility is to restore stability to the war-torn country in order to bring refugees back home.

In an interview with Yahoo News, to be broadcast on Friday, Assad said he would not ask any president to allow Syrians to have refuge in their country.

Commenting on US President Donald Trump’s executive order barring refugees, immigrants, from predominantly Muslim countries, specifically all Syrian refugees, Assad said this issue has two aspects.

“The first one (aspect) is American, this is an American issue and it is related to the sovereignty of the American nation. Every country has the right to put any regulations to enter their country. We can disagree or agree,” President Assad said, according to SANA news agency.

“But if you ask me as president, as official in the Syrian state, my responsibility is not to go and ask any president to allow the Syrians to go there and to have refuge in that country. My responsibility is to restore the stability, in order to bring them back to Syria and find refuge in their country. So, I’m not going to discuss that this is right or wrong; this is American issue,” the Syrian leader said.

President Assad meanwhile, pointed out that some of these refuges have been aligned with terrorists.

“Definitely, you can find it on the net; the same picture that you saw them – in some cases, of course – in some instances, those terrorists in Syria, holding the machinegun or killing people, they are peaceful refugees in Europe or in the West in general. Yeah, that’s true.”

On the number of terrorists among the 4.8 million Syrian refugees, President Assad said “no-one has any number, nobody knows, because nobody knows all the terrorists to give a percentage, no-one at all.”

Source: SANA