Background Image

...

Every Friend Of Syria Is Looking For Peaceful Solution, And We Are Convinced About That. We Have This Advice, And Without This Advice We Are Convinced About It.

-Bashar Al-Assad

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Every Friend Of Syria

Bashar Al-Assad

...

Every Friend Of Syria Is Looking For Peaceful Solution, And We Are Convinced About That. We Have This Advice, And Without This Advice We Are Convinced About It.

Views: 55247

Topic

More From Bashar Al-Assad

[chemical Weapons] Isn't About What The United States Believe In, It's About The Reality That We Have, And This Reality, We Own It, We Don't Have To Discuss It.

From The First Day I Took The Decision As President To Defend My Country. So, Who Killed ? That's Another Question. Actually, The Terrorists Have Been Killing Our People Since The Beginning Of This Crisis Two Years And A Half Ago, And The Syrian People Wanted The Government And The State Institutions And The Army And The Police To Defend Them, And That's What Happened.

Simply Naming Objectives Isn't Sufficient For A Vision. If I Say That I'm Going To Build A Large Palace, But I Don't Have Any Money To Do So, Then That Is Not A Vision - It's An Illusion.

You Can Forge Anything These Days, And We're Living In A Fake News Era.

When You Talk About Cooperation, It Means Cooperation Between Two Legal Governments, Not Cooperation Between Foreign Government And Any Faction Within Syria.

There's A Video About One Of Those Women Who They Consider As Rebel Or Fighter Who Worked With Those Terrorists And She Said "they Didn't Tell Us How To Use The Chemical Weapons" And One Of Those Weapons Exploded In One Of The Tunnels And Killed Twelve. That's What She Said.

In Aleppo We Had The Missile Itself, And The Material, And The Sample From The Sand, From The Soil, And Samples From The Blood [of Chemical Weapons].

Fighting The Terrorists In Syria Is Not Only In The Interest Of Syria Or The Syrian People; In The Interest Of The Middle East, Of Europe Itself - Something That Many Officials In The West Don't See Or Don't Realize Or Don't Acknowledge - And In The Interest Of The Russian People, Because They Have Been Facing Terrorists For Decades Now.

The Fact That There Are People Who Criticize Me Doesn't Mean That People Hate Me.

Israeli Interests Are Not Necessarily In Harmony With The American Interests.

The Problem With Every American Candidate Regarding The Presidency, I Am Not Talking Only About This Campaign Or Elections, But Generally, That They Say Something During The Campaign And They Do The Opposite After The Campaign.

You Have Different Parties, Different Factions, You Have Different Ideologies ; You Have Everything In Middle East Region Now.

Personally, I Do Not Support The Concept Of Suicide Bombings. This Is Not Part Of Our [syrian] Culture. But Whether You Condemn Them Or Not, Suicide Bombings Are A Reality.

If There Is Any Change Regarding That Hope, We Should Ask The Syrian People, Not Anyone Else In The World.

Whenever You Have A War, The Civilians And The Innocents Will Pay The Price. That's In Any War, Any War Is A Bad War.

That The Rebels Or The Terrorists Used The Chemical Weapons In Northern Aleppo Five Months Ago [in 2013].

We Wouldn't Have Withstood For Two Years And A Half. We Would Have Disintegration Of The Army, Disintegration Of The Whole Institution In The State ; We Would Have Disintegration Of Syria If That Was The Case. It Can't Be Tolerated In Syria. I'm Talking About The Normal Reaction Of The People. If It's Not A National Army, It Cannot Have The Support, And If It Doesn't Have The Public Support Of Every Sect, It Cannot Do Its Job And Advance Recently. It Cannot. The Army Of The Family Doesn't Make National War.

That's The Problem With The American Position; They Think That They Are The Police Of The World.

Lebanon Was Under Israeli Occupation, Up To Its Capital, But We Did Not Consider That A Disaster. Why? Because It Was Very Clear That There Are Ways To Resist.

Israeli Occupation

When You Use An Armament, You Use It To Defend The Civilians. You Kill Terrorists In Order To Defend Civilians. That's The Natural Role Of Any Army In The World.

We Are Against Any Wmd, Any Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Whether Chemical Or Nuclear.

Mass Destruction

We Can Have National Dialogue Where Different Syrian Parties Sit And Discuss The Future Of Syria. You Can Have Interim Government Or Transitional Government. Then You Have Final Elections, Parliamentary Elections, And You're Going To Have Presidential Elections.

When You Talk About Humanitarian, It Doesn't Only Mean To Offer The People The Help, The Food, Their Necessary Needs For Their Life. The First Thing, If You Ask The Syrian Refugees, For Example, The First Thing They Want Is To Go Back To Their Country.

Whether [turkey] Is A Nato Country Or Not, It Doesn't Have The Right To Invade Any Other Country According To The International Law Or To Any Other Moral Value.

I Would Only Give A Prize To Whoever Works For The Peace In Syria, First Of All By Stopping The Terrorists From Flowing Towards Syria, Only.

Everybody Knows That The United Nations Is Not The Secretary-general; He Has An Important Position, But The United Nations Is The States Within This Organization, And To Be Frank, Most Of The People Say Only The Five Permanent Members; This Is The United Nations Because They Have The Veto, They Can Do Whatever They Want And They Can Refuse Whatever They Want, And If There's A Reform That Is Very Much Needed For This Organization.

If You Want To Be Transparent With Your People, Do Not Do Anything Cosmetic, Whether To Deceive Your People Or To Get Some Applaud From The West.

Russia Is Very Important, Iran Is Very Important, Hezbollah Is Very Important. All Of Them Are Important. Each One Made Important Achievements Against The Terrorists In Syria, So It's Difficult To Say Who Is More Important Than The Other.

We've Been Living In Difficult Circumstances And We Prepare Ourselves For Every Possibility. But That Doesn't Mean If You're Prepared Things Will Be Better ; It's Going To Get Worse With Any Foolish Strike Or Stupid War.

[a Conflict Of Sunni Vs. Shia] Is In The Mind Of The Saudis, And This Is In The Minds Of The Wahabists. [the Iranians] Actually What They Are Doing Is The Opposite. They Tried To Open Channels With The Saudi, With Many Other Islamic Entities In The Region In Order To Talk About Islamic Society, Not Sunni And Shi'ite Societies.

If You Don't Win And The Terrorists Win, Syria Wouldn't Exist Anymore.

We Cannot Tell Anything About What [donald Trump] Is Going To Do, But If, Let's Say If He Is Going To Fight The Terrorists, Of Course We Are Going To Be Ally, Natural Ally In That Regard With The Russian, With The Iranian, With Many Other Countries Who Wanted To Defeat The Terrorists.

As Soon As The Legitimate Lebanese Government Is Convinced That The Conditions Have Ripened And That Lebanon Is Able To Maintain Stability On Its Own... Then, The Syrian Forces Will Return To Their Homeland.

There Can Be No Peace Without Unity.

[united States] Are Sovereign Country, They Are An Independent Country, But This Is Their Limit; They Don't Have To Interfere In Any Other Country. Because Of This Interference For The Last Fifty Years, That's Why They Are Very Good Only In Creating Problems, Not In Solving Problems. That's The Problem With The American Role.

Israel Does Not Care About The International Public Opinion.

Syria Is Geographically And Politically In The Middle Of The Middle East. That Is Why We Are In Contact With Most Of The Problems Forever, Let Us Say, Whether Directly Or Indirectly.

For Turkey, They Think That If The Muslim Brotherhood Take Over The Rest Of The Region, They Will Be Very Comfortable, They Will Be Very Happy, They Will Make Sure That Their Political Future Is Guaranteed.

My Country And Me, We Are Part Of This Region, We're Not Separated. We Cannot Discuss It As Syria Or As Me ; It Should Be As Part, As A Whole, As Comprehensive. That's How We Have To Look At It.

When You Have Terrorists, You Don't Throw At Them Balloons Or You Don't Use Rubber Sticks, For Example. You Have To Use Armaments.

Conversely, It Is Correct To Say That Bringing About Peace Would Be The Best Way To Fight Terror.

At The End, I Said [chemical Weapons] Is Something Not To Be Discussed With Anyone.

No Doubt That The U.s. Is A Super-power Capable Of Conquering A Relatively Small Country, But Is It Able To Control It?

The U.s. And Britain Are Incapable Of Controlling All Of Iraq.

The United States Accused Syria, And Because You Accused You Have To Bring Evidence [of Chemical Weapons], This First Of All. We Have To Find Evidences When We Are There.

Our Soldiers In Another Area Were Attacked Chemically. Our Soldiers - They Went To The Hospital As Casualties Because Of Chemical Weapons, But In The Area Where They Said The Government Used Chemical Weapons, We Only Had Video And We Only Have Pictures And Allegations. We're Not There ; Our Forces, Our Police, Our Institutions Don't Exist There. How Can You Talk About What Happened If You Don't Have Evidence ?

We Are Very Cautious In Judging [donald Trump], Especially As He Wasn't In A Political Position Before.

For The West, They Wanted To Undermine The Syrian Positions. For The Petrodollar Countries Like Saudi Arabia, They're Thinking Undermining Syria Will Undermine Iran On Sectarian Basis.

We Asked For A Delegation [of The Red Cross] In March 2013 When The First Attack Happened In Aleppo In The North Of Syria ; They Delayed It Till Just A Few Days Before Al-ghouta When They Sent Those Team, And The Team Itself Said In Its Report That He Did Everything As He Wanted. There Was Not A Single Obstacle.

This Is The Middle East, Where Every Week You Have Something New; So Whatever You Talk About This Week Will Not Be Valuable Next Week.

Those Who Arrived On America's Tanks Are Not Credible In Iraq.

In The End A Lie Is A Lie.

António Guterres Role As Secretary-general In Bringing All Powers Together Is Very Essential` And We Hope He Can Succeed, It's Not Easy Of Course.

The Only One Who Can Fight For These Values Like Democracy And Freedoms Are The People Of Any Country Or Any Society, Not The Foreigners.

Worry Does Not Mean Fear, But Readiness For The Confrontation.

We're Not In The Area Where The Alleged Chemical Attack Happened. I Said Alleged. We're Not Sure That Anything Happened.

No Government In The World Kills Its People, Unless It's Led By A Crazy Person.

Without The Public Support, We Cannot Withstand Two Years And A Half. Look At The Other Countries, Look What Happened In Libya, In Tunisia And In Egypt.

Its Not About Learning To Trust. Its About Learning What It Is I Place My Trust In And Why. Its Like Learning To See The Forest For The Trees. You Cannot See The Forest For The Trees Unless You Are Outside The Forest.

The First Thing You Have To Learn Is How To Conduct Dialogue And How To Make It Productive.

Our Democracy Should Reflect Our Culture And Our Habits And Our Customs And Our Reality At The Same Time.

On The Border Area With Lebanon Where [hezbollah Forces] Want To Protect Themselves And Cooperate With Us, But They Don't Exist All Over Syria.

I Think The Most Important Part Of This Now Is, Let's Say The American People, But The Polls Show That The Majority Now Don't Want A War, Anywhere, Not Only Against Syria.

You Want Me To Believe American Evidence And Don't Want Me To Believe The Indications That We Have. We Live Here, This Is Our Reality.

You Look At [terrorists] Faces, They Look Foreigners, But Where Are They Coming From ? How Precise This Estimate Is Difficult To Tell, But Definitely The Majority Are Al-qaeda.

Regarding Fighting Terrorism, We Are Ready To Cooperate With Anyone In This World With No Conditions. That's Crux Of Our Policy, Not Today, Not Yesterday; For Years, Even Before The War On Syria, We Always Said That.

This Is Cooperation [with Hezbollah, Iran , From Russia], I Don't Know What You Mean By Support. We Have Cooperation With Countries For Decades. Why Talk About This Cooperation Now ?

I've Never Heard Of Soft War.there's No Soft War. War Is War. Any War Is Ruthless. When You Fight Terrorists, You Fight Them Like Any Other War.

When We Analyze This War In A Materialistic Way And Ask When Is It Going To End And Who Will Be The Winner And The Loser, It Means That We Do Not See The Endgame.

If You Want To Kill The Syrian People, Who's Going To Support Us As A Government, As Officials? No One.

If The American Administration Want To Support Al-qaeda - Go Ahead. That's What We Have To Tell Them, Go Ahead And Support Al-qaeda, But Don't Talk About Rebels And Free Syrian Army.

The Other Thing We Did As Government Is To Open Gates For The Civilians To Leave That [ Eastern Part] Area [in Aleppo], And At The Same Time For The Humanitarian Convoys And Help To Go Through Those Gates Inside That Part Of Aleppo, But The Terrorists Publicly Refused Any Solution, So They Wanted To Keep The Situation As It Is.

We Have To Be There To Get The Evidence Like What Happened In Aleppo When We Had Evidence. And Because The United States Didn't Send The Team, We Sent The Evidence To The Russians.

The Problem With The West Is That They Start With Political Reform Going Towards Democracy. If You Want To Go Towards Democracy, The First Thing Is To Involve The People In Decision Making, Not To Make It.

We're Not Sure That If There's Chemical Weapon Used And Who Used It. We Can't Talk About Virtual Things, We Have To Talk About Facts.

The Worst Loss For Any Country Is Not The Infrastructure Or The Buildings Or The Material Loss; Actually, It's The Human Resources Loss.

You Said Treaties, And A Russian Official Said ; We Have Not Agreement... Contracts, That We Have To Fulfill, And Those Contracts Are Like Any Country ; You Buy Armaments, You Buy Anything You Want.

We Don't Have A Lot Of Expectations [for Donald J. Trump] Because The American Administration Is Not Only About The President; It's About Different Powers Within This Administration, The Different Lobbies That They Are Going To Influence Any President.

Every Country Has Criminals Who Have To Be Fought. They Can Exist Anywhere, Including The Government Or The Army - Or Outside The Government And Army.

Talking About Winning And Losing Is Like If You're Talking About Two Armies Fighting On Two Territories, Which Is Not The Case. Those [terrorists] Are Gangs, Coming From Abroad, Infiltrate Inhabited Areas, Kill The People, Take Their Houses, And Shoot At The Army. The Army Cannot Do The Same, And The Army Doesn't Exist Everywhere.

In The War, You Lose Areas, But You Recapture Another Area. So, It Is Difficult To Tell Whether You Are Losing Or Gaining Or It Was A Standstill. No-one Has This Answer.

Whatever The American Officials Said About The Conflicts In Syria In General Has No Credibility. Whatever They Say, It's Just Lies And, Let's Say, Bubbles, Has No Foundation On The Ground.

Almost All Countries Have Natural Dividing Lines, And When Ethnic And Religious Partition Occurs In One Country, It'll Soon Happen Elsewhere.

You Can't Say "the People Of Aleppo" Because The Majority Of The People Of Aleppo Are Living In The Area Under The Control Of The Government, So You Cannot Talk About The People Of Aleppo.

I Don't Have Support. Not Me ; All Syria. Every Agreement Is Between Every Class And Every Sector In Syria ; Government, People, Trade, Military, Culture, Everything ; It's Like The Cooperation Between Your Country And Any Other Country In The World. It's The Same Cooperation. It's Not About Me ; It's Not Support For The Crisis.

America Is Interested In Re-arranging The Region As It Sees Fit.

Foreigners Cannot Bring Freedom, Cannot Bring Democracy, Because This Is Related To The Culture, To The Different Factors That Affect Or Influence That Society. You Cannot Bring It, You Cannot Import It.

With The Time, Yes We Can Be Worried, Because The Secular State Should Reflect Secular Society, And This Secular Society, With The Time, If You Don't Get Rid Of Those Terrorists And These Extremists And The Wahabi Style, Of Course It Will Influence At Least The New And The Coming Generations.

Secular Society

Armies Are Not Only For Offensives.

Before The 11th Of September, In My Discussions With Many Officials Of The United States, Some Of Them Are Congressmen, I Used To Say That "don't Deal With Terrorists As Playing Games." It's A Different Story. You're Going To Pay The Price If You're Not Wise In Dealing With Terrorists.

Some Of These Agendas Wanted Me To Quit, Very Simply, So They Said "we Have All The Guarantees If You Want To Leave, And All The Money And Everything You Want." Of Course, You Just Ignore That.

In The United States, They Always Talk About Subtitles, About Chapters In A Book Without Taking The Main Title Of The Book. They Talk About A Subtitle In A Chapter And If You Ask Them About The Headline, The Main Title, They Say They Do Not Know.

From Russia For Example, We Have Political Support, Which Is Different From The Cooperation. We Have Cooperation For 60 Years Now, But Now We Have Political Support.

The American Officials Should Learn To Deal With Reality. Why Did The United States Fail In Most Of Its Wars ? Because It Always Based Its Wars On The Wrong Information. So, Whether They Believe Or Not, This Is Not Reality.

Let's Presume That A Country Or Army Has This Weapon ; This Kind Of Armaments Cannot Be Used By Infantry For Example Or By Anyone. This Kind Of Armament Should Be Used By Specialized Units, So It Cannot Be In The Hand Of Anyone.

Any American Strike Will Not Destroy As Much As The Terrorists Have Already Destroyed In Syria ; Sometimes The Repercussions Could Be Many Doubles The Strike Itself.

The Problem Is Not The Occupation, But How People Deal With It.

We Feel Pain For Every Syrian Victim.

Actually, He Gave False Evidence [of Chemical Weapons]. In This Case,[john] Kerry Didn't Even Present Any Evidence. He Talked "we Have Evidence" And He Didn't Present Anything. Not Yet, Nothing So Far ; Not A Single Shred Of Evidence.

It's Our Right To Defend Our Country Against Any Kind Of Invasion.

There's A Difference Between A Mistake Or Even A Crime That's Been Committed By An Individual, And Between A Policy Of Crime That's Been Implemented Or Adopted By A Government.

Israel Has Wmd, And It Has To Sign [chemical Warfare Agreement], And Israel Is Occupying Our Land, So That's We Talked About The Middle East, Not Syria, Not Israel ; It Should Be Comprehensive.

The First Thing Syrian Refugees Want Is To Be Able To Live Within Syria. That Means Help, Humanitarian Help, The Way We Understand It, Food, Medical Care, Any Other, Let's Say, Basics For The Daily Life.

[it Is Important] To Have Stability And To Have Security, Which Means Humanitarian Equals Fighting Terrorists. You Cannot Talk About Humanitarian Aid And Supporting The Terrorists At The Same Time. You Cannot, You Have To Choose.

We Have The Precedent Of Collin Powell Ten Years Ago, When He Showed The Evidence, It Was False, And It Was Forged.

Many People Do Not Understand The Difference Between Peace And A Peace Treaty. If You Want To Have Real Peace With Normal Relations Between People, You Need To Have Comprehensive Peace.

John Kerry Presented His Confidence And His Convictions. It's Not About Confidence, It's About Evidence. The Russians Have Completely Opposite Evidence That The Missiles Were Thrown From An Area Where The Rebels Control. This Reminds Me - What Kerry Said - About The Big Lie That Collin Powell Said In Front Of The World On Satellites About The Wmd In Iraq Before Going To War. He Said "this Is Our Evidence."

You In Lebanon, Your Power Is No Match To Israel. Israel, Militarily, Is More Powerful Than You And Maybe It Is More Powerful Than All The Arab Countries, Or Most Of Them.

[the Jews] Tried To Kill The Principles Of All Religions With The Same Mentality In Which They Betrayed Jesus Christ And The Same Way They Tried To Betray And Kill The Prophet Muhammad.

Think Of The War Against Terrorism. In My View, Washington's Approach Can Be Compared To A Doctor Constantly Banging Away At A Tumor Instead Of Removing It Surgically.

We Can Say, You Can Win The War Only When You Restore Stability In Syria.

You Cannot Reform Your Society Or Institution Without Opening Your Mind. So The Core Issue Is How To Open The Mind, The Whole Society, And This Means Everybody In Society Including Everyone. I Am Not Talking About The State Or Average Or Common People. I Am Talking About Everybody; Because When You Close Your Mind As An Official You Cannot Upgrade And Vice Versa.

People Do Not Only Live On Interests; They Also Live On Beliefs, Especially In Very Ideological Areas. Unless You Understand The Ideological Aspect Of The Region, You Cannot Understand What Is Happening.

You Have To Look At The Reality In Syria. Whenever We Liberate Any City Or Village From The Terrorists, The Civilians Will Go Back To The City, While They Flee That City When The Terrorists Attack That Area, The Opposite. So, They Flee, First Of All, The War Itself; They Flee The Area Under The Control Of The Terrorists, They Flee The Difficult Situation Because Of The Embargo By The West On Syria.

Difficult Situations

It Is Natural That We Should Always Expect An Israeli Attack, Even When It Does Not Threaten.

Many Syrians Understand That The Only Way To Protect Your Country Is To Live With Each Other With Integration, Not Only In Coexistence, Which Is Actually More Precise To Call Cohabitation, When People Interact And Integrate With Each Other On Daily Basis In Every Detail. So, I Think In This Regard I Am More Assured That Syria Will Be More Unified. So, The Only Problem Now That We Face Is Not The Partition, But Terrorism.

Opposition Is Different From Terrorism. Opposition Is A Political Movement.

I Don't Believe That In A Couple Of Months Erdogan And The United States Regime, And The Western Regimes In General, And Of Course Saudi Arabia And Qatar, Are Going To Stop The Support Of The Terrorists.

Al-qaeda Has One Ideology And They Go Back To The Same Leadership In Afghanistan Or In Syria Or In Iraq. That's The Question. You Have Tens Of Thousands Of Foreigners, That's Definitely Correct. We Are Fighting Them On The Ground And We Know This.

When Our Interests Matched, The Americans Have Been Good To Us, And When The Interests Differed, They Wanted Us To Mold Ourselves To Them, Which We Refused.

The Logical Thing Is To Implement The Arab Defense Agreement.

At The End, Killing Is Killing. Massacring Is Massacring.

We Believe That Lebanon Has Been The First Real Experience For All The Arabs.

It Would Be A Mistake To Link Anything That Israel Does To A Certain Circumstance. And It Is A Mistake To Feel Comfortable In Any Circumstance Just Because Israel Did Not Act On It.

When You Talk About Al-qaeda It Doesn't Matter If He's Syrian Or American Or From Europe Or From Asia Or Africa.

[hezbollah Forces] Cannot Exist All Over Syria Anyway, For Many Reasons, But They Exist On The Borders.

The External Support Can Never Substitute Internal Support, The Example That We Have To Look At Very Well Is Egypt And Tunisia ; They Have All The Support From The West And From The Gulf And From Most Of The Countries Of The World. When They Don't Have Support Within Their Country, They Couldn't Continue More Than - How Many Weeks ? - Three Weeks. So, The Only Reason We Stand Here For Two Years And A Half Is Because We Have Internal Support, Public Support.

Countries Of The World

I Have To Be Very Clear And Very Honest. I'm Not Asking [ The American Officials] To Believe If They Don't Want To Believe. This Is Reality, I'm Telling You The Reality From Our Country. We Live Here, We Know What Is Happening, And They Have To Listen To People Here. They Cannot Listen Only To Their Media Or To Their Research Centers. They Don't Live Here ; No One Lives Here But Us.

How Can You Be Afraid To Feel? Isn't Fear A Feeling? If You're Feeling Fear, You've Felt One Of The Most Negative Emotions There Is To Feel. Everything Else Should Be A Piece Of Cake. Feel Good, Feel Happy, Feel Healthy, Feel Loved, Feel Abundant, Feel Creative, Feel Compassionate, Feel Knowledgeable, Feel Powerful.

None Of Us And None Of The Arabs Trust Israel.

Hizbullah Is Not A Militia.

I Never Rejected Any Responsibility, But That Depends On The Decision.

Let's Be Realistic, Every Terrorist Came To Syria, He Came Through Turkey With The Support Of [recep Tayyip] Erdogan. So, Fighting Those Terrorists Is Like Fighting The Army Of Erdogan, Not The Turkish Army, The Army Of Erdogan.

The Question Is Who Threw Chemicals On The Same Day On Our Soldiers. That's The Same Question. Technically, Not The Soldiers. Soldiers Don't Throw Missiles On Themselves. So, Either The Rebels, The Terrorists, Or A Third Party. We Don't Have Any Clue Yet.

Tayyip Erdoğan Is Megalomaniac President, He Is Not Stable. He Lives During The Ottoman Era, He Doesn't Live In The Current Time. He's Out Of Touch With The Reality.

There Is No Good War.

Whether You Call It Terrorism Or Resistance, And Whether You Like Hamas Or Not, It Is A Political Entity That No One Can Ignore.

If We Want To Expect Something From This [barack Obama] Administration, It Is Not To Be Weak, To Be Strong To Say That "we Don't Have Evidence," That "we Have To Obey The International Law", That "we Have To Go Back To The Security Council And The United Nations".

It Is Difficult For Anyone To Tell You What Is Going To Happen. [middle East] Is An Area Where Everything Is On The Brink Of Explosion.

As We See Now The American Officials, They Say Something In The Morning And They Do The Opposite In The Evening. So, You Cannot Judge Those People According To What They Say. You Cannot Take Them At Their Words, To Be Frank.

Those Fighters, The Syrian Part That You're Talking About, Lost Its Natural Incubators In The Syrian Society - They Don't Have Incubators Anymore ; That's Why They Have Incubators Abroad. They Need Money From Abroad, They Need Moral Support And Political Support From Abroad. They Don't Have Any Grassroots, Any Incubator. So, When You Stop The Smuggling, We Don't Have Problems.

What The Army Is Doing Is Cleaning Those Areas, And The Indication That The Army Is Strong Is That It's Making Advancement In That Area. It Never Went To One Area And Couldn't Enter To It - That's An Indication. How Could That Army Do That If It's A Family Army Or A Sect Army ? What About The Rest Of The Country Who Support The Government ? It's Not Realistic, It Doesn't Happen. Otherwise, The Whole Country Will Collapse.

I Will Tell [barack Obama] Very Simply : Present What You Have As Evidence To The Public, Be Transparent.

There's A Difference Between Responsibility Of The Policy And Responsibility Of The Practice. In Any Practice, You Have Malpractice, That's Another Issue. When You Talk About State And President, You Always Talk About The Decisions And The Policy.

We Are Worried That Rebels Are Taking Control In Many Countries, And Look At The Results Now. Are You Satisfied As An American ? What Are The Results ? Nothing. Very Bad - Nothing Good.

Is There An Equality Of Power Between America And Iraq? Definitely Not; However, The Iraqi People Are Standing Fast And Are Defending Their Land Courageously.

Today, The Iraqi Citizen Sees That America Is Coming And Wants To Occupy His Country And Kill Him, And He Is Willing To Experience For Himself What Happened In Palestine.

This Is Reality. If [the American Officials] Want To Believe, That's Good, That Will Help Them Understand The Region And Be More Successful In Their Policies.

Sometimes You May Kill Tens Of Thousands Or Hundreds Of Thousands With Very Primitive Armaments.

We Said [u.s] Are Going To Be Repercussions Of The Mistaken Way Of Dealing With It, Of Treating The Terrorism, But Nobody Expected 11th Of September. So, You Cannot Expect. It Is Difficult For Anyone To Tell You What Is Going To Happen. It's An Area Where Everything Is On The Brink Of Explosion. You Have To Expect Everything.

The Army Is Made Of The People ; It Cannot Be Made Of Robots.

Peace In Syria Is Not Only Our Priority; It's A Middle Eastern Priority, And When The Middle East Is Stable, The Rest Of The World Is Stable, Because The Middle East Is The Heart Of The World Geographically And Geopolitically, And Syria Is The Heart Of The Middle East Geographically And Geopolitically.

It Is Even More So When It Comes To Iraq, Which Is A Large Arab Country With Scientific, Material, And Human Resources And Is Able To Accomplish, At The Least, What Lebanon Accomplished, And More.

In Any War, People Will Pay The Price.

I Am President, I Don't Own The Country So They Are Not My Forces.

We Didn't Say That 80% [of Terrorists], For Example, Or The Majority Or The Vast Majority, Are Foreigners. We Said The Vast Majority Are Al-qaeda Or Al-qaeda Offshoot Organizations In This Region.

You Cannot Reform Your Society Or Institution Without Opening Your Mind.

Terrorism Is A State Of Mind That On The One Hand Has To Do With Ignorance And, On The Other Hand, Can Be Attributed To A Feeling Of Desperation Over The Political Situation, Which At Some Point Takes The Form Of Revenge.

We Learned That Lesson Very Well, Especially In The Eighties, That Terrorists Cannot Be Used As A Political Card, You Cannot Put It In Your Pocket, Because It's Like A Scorpion; It Will Bite You Someday.

The Captain Doesn't Think About Death, Or Life, He Thinks About Saving His Ship.

I Don't Want To Talk About Methods Of Killing. But What Is The Difference Between A Bomb Worn On The Body And One Dropped From An Airplane? Both Of Them Kill People.

America Must Listen. It Must Listen To The Interests Of Others. But The Us Government Has No Interest In Similarities, No Matter How Obvious.

We Are Fully Free, Not Partially, Fully Free, In Everything Related To The Future Of Syria.

Do You Call The People In Los Angeles In The Nineties - Do You Call Them Rebels Or Opposition ? They Are Rebels. They Are Not Rebels Even, They Are Beheading. This Opposition, Opposing Country Or Government, By Beheading ? By Barbecuing Heads ? By Eating The Hearts Of Your Victim ? Is That Opposition ? What Do You Call The People Who Attacked The Two Towers On The 11th Of September ? Opposition ? Even If They're Not Americans, I Know This, But Some Of Them I Think Have Nationality - I Think One Of Them Has American Nationality. Do You Call Him Opposition Or Terrorist ?

We Are The Fault Line; If You Don't Deal With This Fault Line, You're Going To Have An Earthquake, That's What We Always Said.

Hamas Will Not Disappear. Hamas Will Not Raise The White Flag. Hamas Has The Trust Of The People, And Anyone Who Wishes To Destroy It Must Destroy An Entire People.

You Cannot Be Desperate When The Army Is Making Advances. That Should Have Happened - If We Take Into Consideration That This Presumption Is Correct And This Is Reality - You Use It When You're In A Desperate Situation.

Desperate Situations

The Sarin Gas Is A Very Primitive Gas. You Can Have It Done In The Backyard Of A House ; It's A Very Primitive Gas. So, It's Not Something Complicated.

It's Not Religious War, But Al-qaeda Always Use Religions, Islam - Actually, As A Pretext And As A Cover And As A Mantle For Their War And For Their Terrorism And For Their Killing And Beheading And So On.

You Cannot Import Anything From Outside Your Country Regarding The Future Of Your Country.

We Are Ready To Cooperate In Any Way To Achieve Stability In Syria, Of Course Taking Into Consideration The Interest Of The Country, And The Will Of The Syrian People.

Every Friend Of Syria Is Looking For Peaceful Solution, And We Are Convinced About That. We Have This Advice, And Without This Advice We Are Convinced About It.

As I Said, This [repercussions] May Take Different Forms : Direct And Indirect. Direct When People Want To Retaliate, Or Governments. Indirect When You're Going To Have Instability And The Spread Of Terrorism All Over The Region That Will Influence The West Directly.

Reform Has To Be Based On Opening Your Mind And Opening The Mind Does Not Come From Decrees Or Laws. It Comes From A Whole Set Of Circumstances, Which If You Do Not Have, Anything You Do Will Be Not Productive Or Will Be Counter-productive.

You Cannot Talk About Winning The War As Long As There's Killing And Destruction On Daily Basis.

A Bomb Is A Bomb, What's The Difference Between Different Kinds Of Bombs? All Bombs Are To Kill, But It's About How To Use It.

We Have Agreements With Many Countries Including Iran, Including Russia, Including Other Countries That Are About Different Things Including Armament. It's Cooperation Like Any Cooperation Between Any Two Countries, Which Is Normal. It's Not Related To The Crisis.

Of Course, When Secretary-general Is Objective, He Can Play An Important Role In Dealing With Different Officials In The United Nations In Order To Bring The Policies Of The Different States - Mainly Russia And The United States - Toward More Cooperation And More Stability Regarding Syria.

If You Want To Talk About Mistakes, Every Country Has Mistakes, Every Government Has Mistakes, Every Person Has Mistakes. When You Have A War, You Have More Mistakes. That's The Natural Thing.

[hezbollah, Iran, And Russia] Are Here Because They Could Offer Very Essential And Important Help, Because The Situation That We Are Facing Now Is Not Only About A Few Terrorists From Within Syria; It's Like International War Against Syria.

Nobody Knows [who They Are] Because When [terrorists] Are Dead And They Are Killed, They Don't Have Any Id.

Two Years And A Half And Syria Is Still Withstanding Against The United States, The West, Saudi Arabia, The Richest Countries In This Area, Including Turkey, And, Taking Into Consideration What Your Question Implies, That Even The Big Part Or The Bigger Part Of The Syrian Population Is Against Me, How Can I Withstand Till Today ? Am I The Superhuman Or Superman, Which Is Not The Case !

[enemies Of Syria] Are The Enemies Of The People And The Enemies Of God. And The Enemies Of God Will Go To Hell.

It's A Dangerous Thing When Someone Gets Up In The Morning And Has Nothing To Eat.

I Don't Believe The United States Will Be Ready To Join Russia In Fighting Terrorists In Syria.

We, In Syria, Our Point Of View Stems From Our Experience.

Did The President Order Anyone To Kill Civilians, Did He Order The Destruction, Did He Order Supporting Terrorism In His Country? Of Course Not.

We Were On The Way To Democracy. We Didn't Say That We Are Fully Democratic, We Were On The Way, We Were Moving Forward. Slowly Or Fast, That's Subjective, Cannot Be Objective, That's Always Subjective. But We're Moving Forward In That Regard.

Under Syrian Law, A Journalist Is Not Allowed To Report On Military Matters. This May Be Wrong Or Right, But That's Just The Way It Is.

We're Talking About One Region, Bigger Regions, Not Only About Syria. This Interlinked Region, This Intermingled, Interlocked, Whatever You Want To Call It ; If You Strike Somewhere, You Have To Expect The Repercussions Somewhere Else In Different Forms In Ways You Don't Expect.

Your Policy Should Be A Mixture Between Your Interests And How You Reach Your Ends, But Based On Values. It Cannot Be Only The End Justifies The Means, Because For The Criminals, Ends Justify The Means, For Thieves, For Every Illegal And Immoral Action, The End Justifies The Means.

When Lebanon Started Its Resistance It Was A Small And Divided Country.

In The Initiative That We Issued At The Beginning Of Year 2013 We Said Every Party With No Exceptions As Long As They Give Up Their Armaments.

We Cannot Use Jihadists Because It's Like Shooting Yourself In The Foot.

Anyone Who's Not Military Knows This Fact. Why Do You Use Chemical Weapons While You're Advancing ?

I Believe That The United States Is Not Genuine Regarding Having A Cessation Of Violence In Syria.

But The Issue Has To Do With Land, Which Is Our Land.

In Great Britain, An Author Published A Book In Which He Claimed That Jesus Christ Had Children. Such Statements Don't Trigger Civil Unrest And Bloodshed In Europe. But Write Similar Statements About Islam In Syria And You Might See Bloody Uprisings.

Terrorists Have Been Supported By Tens Of Foreign Countries, So Syria Alone Wouldn't Be Able To Face This Kind Of War Without The Help Of Its Friends.

As Far As We Are Concerned, We Syria Have Not Changed.

Trending Author

Category