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I Said We Don't Pin A Lot Of Hopes Of Changing Administrations [in U.s.] Because That Context Has Been Going On For More Than Fifty Years Now, And That's Expected. If They Want To Continue In The Same Position Of The United States Creating Problems Around The World, That's What They Have To Do: Only Interfering In The Matters Of Other Nations.

-Bashar Al-Assad

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I Said We Don't

Bashar Al-Assad

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I Said We Don't Pin A Lot Of Hopes Of Changing Administrations [in U.s.] Because That Context Has Been Going On For More Than Fifty Years Now, And That's Expected. If They Want To Continue In The Same Position Of The United States Creating Problems Around The World, That's What They Have To Do: Only Interfering In The Matters Of Other Nations.

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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].

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

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.

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

It Should Be Known That Israel Is Based On Treachery.

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.

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

That's All Before The Crisis. We Always Have This Kind Of Cooperation With Iran [supplies, Weaponry].

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.

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.

The Armament Of The Government Is Legal Armament. Any Other Armament Is Not Legal.

At The Very Beginning, It Was Fully Political. When You Have These Terrorists, The First Part Of The Same Plan Which Is Political Should Start With Stopping The Smuggling Of Terrorists Coming From Abroad, Stopping The Logistic Support, The Money, All Kinds Of Support Coming To These Terrorists.

The Most Important Part Of [russian] Support Is The Aerial Support, Which Is Very Essential, They Have Very Strong Firepower, And At The Same Time They Are The Main Supply Of Our Army For More Than Sixty Years, So Our Army Depends On The Russian Support In Different Military Domains.

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.

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.

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.

Politics Is About Realities, Not Logic.

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

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.

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.

The Place Where The Interests Of All Parties Come Together Is The International Community, Along With Its Resolutions.

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

I'm Not Talking About Him; I'm Talking About The Countries That Go To Support [antonio] Guterres Plan, Because He Needs The Support Of Other Countries, He Cannot Achieve That Plan While Many Countries In The World Are Still Supporting The Terrorists In Syria. So, Of Course We Support It, Whether Helping The People To Live, To Go Back To Their Country, And To Live In Security Without Terrorists.

[ Jihadists] Are Going To Be Against You Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

I Am Syrian, I Was Made In Syria, I Have To Live In Syria And Die In Syria.

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

We Don't Discuss This Issue [ Chemical Weapons ] In Public Because We Never Said That We Have It, And We Never Said That We Don't Have It. It's A Syrian Issue ; It's A Military Issue We Never Discuss In Public With Anyone.

Why Should You Use A Term [rebels] In The United States And England And Maybe Other Countries And Use Another Term In Syria ? This Is A Double Standard That We Don't Accept.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

To Have Or Not To Have [chemical Weapons] Is A Possibility, But To Depend On What Media Says Is Nonsense, Or To Depend On Some Of The Reports Of The Intelligence Is Nonsense And That Was Proven When They Invaded Iraq Ten Years Ago And They Said "iraq Has Stockpiles Of Wmd" And It Was Proven After The Invasion That This Was False ; It Was Fraud. So, We Can't Depend On What One Magazine Wrote.

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

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.

I Think The Congress Is Elected By People, It Represents The People, And Works For Their Interest. The First Question That They Should Ask Themselves : What Do Wars Give America, Since Vietnam Till Now ? Nothing. No Political Gain, No Economic Gain, No Good Reputation.

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 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.

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.

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

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

Even A President Makes Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

I Would Say I Need Two Things: The First One Is To Be Objective In Every Statement He Could Make Regarding Any Conflict Around The World, Including Syria. The Second One Is Not To Turn Secretary-general Office Into A Part Or Branch Of The State Department Of The United States.

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.

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.

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

We Have Hopes That We Can See Rational American Presidents; Fair, Obey The International Law, Deal With Other Countries According To Mutual Respect, Parity, Etc., But We All Know That This Is Only Wishful Thinking And Fantasy.

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

The First Question That I Ask : Do I Have Public Support Or Not. That Is The First Question That I Asked As President. If I Don't Have The Public Support, Whether There's The So-called "arab Spring" - It's Not Spring, Anyway - But Whether We Have This Or We Don't, If You Don't Have Public Support, You Have To Quit, You Have To Leave. If You Have Public Support, In Any Circumstances You Have To Stay. That's Your Mission, You Have To Help The People, You Have To Serve The People.

Syria Is Geographically And Politically In The Middle Of The Middle East.

[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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Circumstances Don't Matter, Only My State Of Being Matters. What State Of Being Are You Choosing?

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

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.

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".

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.

[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.

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

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.

If You Are Going To Be A Mediator Or Arbitrator You Have To Be In The Middle Between The Two Sides; You Cannot Take Sides Only With One Party.

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.

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.

You Have To Be Very Closely Linked To The Beliefs Of The People. This Is The Core Issue. When There Is Divergence Between Your Policy And The People's Beliefs And Interests, You Will Have This Vacuum That Creates Disturbance.

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.

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.

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

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.

We Never Said That The Majority [of The Terrorists] Are Not Syrians, But We Said That The Minority Is What They Call "free Syrian Army." That's What We Said.

There Is No Good War.

You Should Expect Everything. Not Necessarily Through The Government, The Governments Are Not The Only Player In [middle East] Region.

In Reality, You Cannot Withstand For Five Years And More Against All Those Countries, The West, And The Gulf States, The Petrodollars, And All This Propaganda, The Strongest Media Corporations Around The World, If You Don't Have The Support Of Your Own People. That's Against The Reality.

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

I Cannot Afford To Make Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

"winning" Is A Subjective Word, But We Are Making Advancement. This Is The Correct Word, Because Winning For Some People Is When You Finish Completely.

From The First Day I Took The Decision As President To Defend My Country.

I Wouldn't Tell The President [barack Obama] Or Any Other Official, Because We Are Disappointed By Their Behavior Recently, Because We Expected This Administration To Be Different From Bush's Administration. They Are Adopting The Same Doctrine With Different Accessories.

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.

It Started Partly As A Sectarian War In Some Areas, But Now It's Not, Because When You Talk About Sectarian War Or Religious War, You Should Have A Very Clear Line Between The Sects And Religions In Syria According To The Geography And The Demography In Syria, Something We Don't Have.

You Cannot Have Democracy Without The Institutions. You Cannot Have A Democracy That Is Built On The Moods Of Self-interested People.

Iran Doesn't Have Any Soldier In Syria, So How Could Iran Help Me ?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Problem With The West Is That They Start With Political Reform Going Towards Democracy.

The Army Is Making Good Advancement On Daily Basis Against The Terrorists. Of Course, They Still Have The Support Of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia And Some Western Countries Including The United States, But The Only Option That We Have In That Regard Is To Win.

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.

[barack] Obama Can Draw Lines For Himself And His Country, Not For Other Countries. We Have Our Red Lines, Like Our Sovereignty, Our Independence, While If You Want To Talk About World Red Lines, The United States Used Depleted Uranium In Iraq, Israel Used White Phosphorus In Gaza, And Nobody Said Anything. What About The Red Lines ? We Don't See Red Lines. It's Political Red Lines.

We Always Say We Have Wishful Thinking That The Unites States Would Be Unbiased, Respect The International Law, Doesn't Interfere In Other Countries Around The World, And Of Course To Stop Supporting Terrorists In Syria.

We Have To Wait And See When Donald J. Trump Embarks His New Mission, Let's Say, Or Position Within This Administration As President.

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.

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

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

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

We Are Dealing With Treachery And Threats, Which Accompanied The Establishment Of Israel.

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

Using Terrorism Or Jihadists Or Extremists For Any Political Agenda Is Immoral.

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.

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.

In The End A Lie Is A Lie.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The United States' Credibility Is At An All-time Low. So, This War Is Against The Interest Of The Untied States.

[american's Government] Thinking They Are The Judge Of The World; They're Not.

Since The Beginning Of The Crisis, Since The Terrorists Started To Control Some Areas Within Syria, The Majority Of The Syrian Civilians Left That Areas To Join The Government Areas, Not Vice Versa. If The Majority Of The Syrians Don't Trust The Government, They Should Go The Other Way.

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.

According To What We've Been Seeing Recently In The Area Where The Terrorists Control, Where They Ban People From Going To Schools, Ban Young Men From Shaving Their Beards, And Women Have To Be Covered From Head To Toe, And Let's Say In Brief They Live The Taliban Style In Afghanistan, Completely The Same Style.

Any Strike Will Be As Direct Support To Al-qaeda Offshoot That's Called Jabhat Al-nusra And The Islamic State Of Iraq And Syria. You're Right About This. It's Going To Be Direct Support.

[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.

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.

The Russians Are Fighting For Us, For The World, And For Their Self.

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.

The Hope For An American Is Different From The Hope Of A Syrian. For Me, I Should Be The Hope Of The Syrian, Not Any Other One, Not American, Neither French, Nor Anyone In The World. I'm President To Help The Syrian 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

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

If The Rebels Or The Terrorists In This Region Or Any Other Group Have [chemical Warfare], This Could Happen, I Don't Know. I'm Not A Fortuneteller To Tell You What's Going To Happen.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

If You Ask Americans Whether They've Been Successful At Sealing The Border With Mexico, They'll Tell You That It's A Very Difficult Proposition.

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.

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.

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.

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

First Of All, When You Have A Doctor Who Cut The Leg To Prevent The Patient From The Gangrene If You Have To, We Don't Call Butcher ; You Call Him A Doctor, And Thank You For Saving The Lives.

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.

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.

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.

Freedom And Democracy Are Nothing But Instruments, Just Like Stability. The Goal Is Called Progress And Growth. Anyone Who Puts Freedom Ahead Of Stability Is Hurting Growth.

Even If You Want To Take The American Story, They Say We Used Chemical Weapons The Same Day The Team Or The Investigation Team Came To Syria ; Is It Logical ? It's Not Logical. Even If A Country Or Army Wanted To Use Such Weapon, They Should Have Waited A Few Days Till The Investigation Finished Its Work. It's Not Logical, The Whole Story Doesn't Even Hold Together.

We're Not Like The American Administration, We're Not Social Media Administration Or Government. We Are A Government That Deals With Reality. When We Have Evidence, We'll Announce It.

In The Eighties, We Asked For International Coalition Against Terrorism After The Muslim Brotherhood Crisis In Syria When They Started Killing, Of Course They Were Defeated At That Time. We Asked For The Same Thing. So, This Is A Long-term Policy That We Base Our Policy On For Years Now.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Majority Of Fighters Now Are Al-qaeda. If You Want To Support Them, You Are Supporting Al-qaeda, You Are Creating Havoc In The Region, And If This Region Is Not Stable, The Whole World Cannot Be Stable.

My Decision Was, And The Decision Of The Different Institutions, And The Decision Of The Different Officials In Syria - I'm On Top Of Them - Was To Have Dialogue, To Fight Terrorists, And To Reform As A Response At The Very Beginning, Response To The Allegations, Let's Say, At That Time, That They Needed Reform In Syria, We Responded.

From Our Side, From Our Part As Government, We Have Two Missions: The First One Is To Fight Those Terrorists To Liberate That Area [eastern Part Of Aleppo] And The Civilians From Those Terrorists, And At The Same Time To Try To Find A Solution To Evacuate That Area From Those Terrorists If They Accept, Let's Say, What You Call It Reconciliation Option, In Which They Either Give Up Their Armaments For Amnesty, Or They Leave That Area.

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.

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.

When You're In The Middle Of A Storm, Leaving Your Country Just Because You Have To Leave Without Any Reasonable Reason, It Means You're Quitting Your Country And This Is Treason.

I Said We Don't Pin A Lot Of Hopes Of Changing Administrations [in U.s.] Because That Context Has Been Going On For More Than Fifty Years Now, And That's Expected. If They Want To Continue In The Same Position Of The United States Creating Problems Around The World, That's What They Have To Do: Only Interfering In The Matters Of Other Nations.

There Is No Such Things As "islamic Terrorism," Because Terrorism Differs From Islam. There's Just Terrorism, Not Islamic Terrorism. But The Term "islamic Terrorism" Has Become Widespread.

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.

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.

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."

We've Been Dealing With This Kind Of Terrorism Since The Fifties, Since The Muslim Brotherhood Came To Syria At That Time.

Hezbollah Fighters Are On The Borders With Lebanon Where The Terrorists Attacked Them. On The Borders With Lebanon, This Is Where Hezbollah Retaliated, And This Is Where We Have Cooperation, And That's Good.

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.

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

I Think Sadness Prevails In Syria Now. We Don't Feel Anything Else But Sadness Because We Have This Killing Every Day, Whether With Chemical Or Any Other Kind.

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.

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.

It's Not Exactly Fair To Make A Mistake Yourself And Then Start Blaming Others For It.

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

[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.

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.

There Can Be No Peace Without Unity.

Opposition Doesn't Mean To Take Arms And Kill People And Destroy Everything.

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.

Many People, They Flee Not The War Itself, But The Consequences Of The War, Because They Want To Live, They Want To Have The Basic Needs For Their Livelihood, They Don't Have It. They Have To Flee These Circumstances, Not Necessarily The Security Situation Itself. So, You Have Different Reasons For The People Or The Refugees To Leave Syria.

These People That Started Here, They Support The Government Now Against Those Rebels. Why Talking About What Happened At The Very Beginning Is Completely Different From What Is Happening Now - It's Not The Same. There's Very High Dynamic, Things Are Changing On Daily Basis. It's A Completely Different Image. Those People Who Wanted Revolution, They Are Cooperating With Us.

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

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

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.

To Have Opposition ? We Have It, And You Can Go And Meet With Them. We Have Some Of Them Within The Government, We Have Some Of Them Outside The Government. They Are Opposition. We Have It.

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

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

It Is Not My Democracy As A Person; It Is Our Democracy As A Society.

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

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.

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

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

The Russians Always Base Their Policies On Values, And These Values Are The Sovereignty Of Other Countries, The International Law, Respecting Other People, Other Cultures, So They Don't Interfere In Whatever Is Related To The Future Of Syria Or The Syrian People.

History Teaches Us That Nobody Can Prevent A Resistance Group From Arming When It Has The Support Of The People.

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.

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

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.

They Want To Criticize You, Let Them Criticize And Do Not Worry. Just Be Transparent With Your People And Tell Them This Is The Reality.

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.

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.

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.

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John James Audubon

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