Mohammed Kheir Jasim al-Nadir said that while some Syrian leaders have indeed taken bribes from Saudi Arabia and stayed in the country, he refused the offer and went to serve Syria instead.
"Saudi Arabia offered us money to break away from Assad and oppose the Syrian government. We were offered it (the bribe) at the house of the Syrian ambassador to Riyadh Mahdi Dakhlallah," al-Nadir said.
"They tempted us with houses and money. They gave us a blank check which could be filled out with any sum, if we announced a U-turn. But, as they say, a person who is good does the right thing for their country, for their people. Nobody can be separated from their people, nobody can abandon their homeland. We are with Syria, with our land, with the valiant Syrian army."
"Unfortunately, some Syrian leaders left for Saudi Arabia because of money. I had a Saudi passport, but I left everything and went to Syria," al-Nadir said.
Earlier this week representatives of the Syrian government and opposition factions meet in Astana for talks brokered by Moscow, Ankara and Tehran, following a ceasefire in the crisis-torn country endorsed by the UN Security Council on December 31, 2016.
As the talks ended on Tuesday, Syrian government and opposition representatives signed a declaration on a ceasefire monitoring mechanism to uphold the nationwide ceasefire agreement.
Russia, Iran and Turkey also decided to establish a trilateral mechanism to monitor the ceasefire in Syria as result of the Astana talks, which are to be followed by a UN-mediated meeting in Geneva expected to take place on February 8.
SPUTNIK/MNA
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