DAMASCUS — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has lashed out at the Arab League and its decision to hand Syria’s seat to the opposition, saying the body “lacks legitimacy,” according to comments published on Thursday.

“The Arab League lacks legitimacy. It’s a League that represents the Arab states, not the Arab people, so it can’t grant or retract legitimacy,” Assad said in extracts from an interview with Turkish media published on the presidency’s Facebook page.

The Arab League last month granted the opposition rebel Syrian National Coalition grouping Syria’s seat at the beginning during a session in Qatar attended by key rebel official and former Coalition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib.

Syrian National Coalition leader Moaz Alkhatib (C) attends the opening of its embassy in Doha March 27, 2013. A Syrian opposition bloc recognised by the Arab League as the sole representative for Syria opened its first embassy in Qatar on Wednesday in a diplomatic blow to President Bashar al-Assad. But opposition leader Alkhatib, who took Syria’s seat at an Arab summit in Doha on Tuesday, used the ribbon-cutting ceremony to voice his frustration with world powers for failing to do more to help in the two-year-old struggle to topple Assad. REUTERS/Mohammed Dabbous

“Real legitimacy is not accorded by organizations or foreign officials or other countries… legitimacy is that which is granted by the people,” Assad said.

“All these theatrics have no value in our eyes,” he added.

The interview, with Turkey’s Ulusal television and Aydinlik newspaper, was conducted on Tuesday and will be aired in full on Friday, the presidency page said.

In extracts published on Wednesday, Assad accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of not having said “a single word of truth since the beginning of the crisis in Syria.”

Turkey is a key backer of the Syrian revolt that broke out in March 2011.

Damascus has regularly accused Ankara of financing, training and arming rebel fighting troops loyal to Assad. The UN says Turkey currently hosts more than 260,000 Syrian refugees.

The UN says more than 70,000 people have been killed in a spiraling war that broke out after the army unleashed a crackdown on a peaceful revolt which morphed into an armed revolt.