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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."

-Bashar Al-Assad

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John Kerry Presented His

Bashar Al-Assad

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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."

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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.

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].

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

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.

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

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 ?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

"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.

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

Sooner Or Later

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 !

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.

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.

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.

We Don't Say That We Don't Have It, We're Still Secular In Syria, But With The Time, This Secularism Will Be Eroded.

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

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.

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.

[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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

We Are Facing An External Attack Against Us, Which Is More Dangerous Than Any Other Previous Wars... We Are Dealing With Those Who Are Extremists, Who Only Know The Language Of Killing And Criminality.

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

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

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.

[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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

It's Not About Me, Again, This Fight Is Not My Fight, It's Not The Fight Of The Government ; It's The Fight Of The Country, Of The Syrian People.

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 Israeli Lobby Has Clout In The U.s., Which Means That Re-arranging The Region And Controlling Its Resources One Way Or Another, Will Serve Israel Through Its Control Over The American Administration.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Revolution Should Be Syrian, Cannot Be Revolution Imported From Abroad.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The United States Doesn't Have The Will To Work Against Al-nusra Or Even Isis, Because They Believe That This Is A Card They Can Use For Their Own Agenda. If They Attack Al-nusra Or Isis, They Will Lose A Very Important Card Regarding The Situation In Syria.

[peace In Syria] Is [antónio Guterres] Priority, And Of Course It's Our Priority, That's Self-evident.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

We Feel Pain For Every Syrian Victim.

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

Since Its Very Inception, Israel Has Been A Threat.

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

You Cannot Have Partition Only On Political Bases Or Geographic Bases. It Should Be Social First Of All When The Communities Do Not Live With Each Other.

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.

Trust That The Thing In Life That Excites You The Most Comes Complete With All The Tools Necessary To Support You In The Doing Of That Thing. It Is Automatic; It Is Built In. All You Need To Do Is Act On The Opportunities That Doing That Situation Brings To You.

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.

[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.

None Of Us And None Of The Arabs Trust Israel.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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".

When You Have Terrorism, You Have A War. When You Have A War, You Always Have Innocent Lives That Could Be The Victim Of Any War, So, We Don't Have To Discuss What The Image In The West Before Discussing The Image In Syria. That's The Question.

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

Despite The Ethnic Diversity Within Each Nation, The Social Fabric Of The Region By And Large Is One.

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

The Part In Aleppo, What [people] Call It The Eastern Part, Is Occupied By The Terrorists For The Last Three Years, And They Have Been Using The Civilians As Human Shields.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Politics Is About Realities, Not Logic.

The Criteria Or The Paradigm For Us Is Not The West, Not The Western Paradigm, Because The West Has Its Own Culture, We Have Our Own Culture, They Have Their Own Reality, We Have Our Own Reality.

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

Mass Destruction

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

I Cannot Afford To Make Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

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.

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.

We're Talking About The Responsibility, My Responsibility According To The Syrian Constitution That Said We Have To Defend Ourselves.

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

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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.

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

Let's Talk... We Have Indications, Let Me Just Finish This Point, Because How Can Use Wmd While Your Troops Are Only 100 Meters Away From It ? Is It Logical ? It Doesn't Happen. It Cannot Be Used Like This.

Israel Does Not Care About The International Public Opinion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

There Can Be No Peace Without Unity.

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.

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.

Even A President Makes Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

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

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.

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.

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.

We Don't Discuss This Issue [conversations With Russia] As A Government, But We Discuss The Repercussions, Which Is More Important Because Sometimes Repercussions Could Be More Destroying Than The Strike Itself.

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.

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."

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

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 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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You Hardly Find Any Military Base In Distant Areas From The [syria] Cities Unless It's An Airport Or Something Like This, But Most Of The Military Bases Or Centers Within Inhabited Areas.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

It Should Be Known That Israel Is Based On Treachery.

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

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.

[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.

I Always Say The Syrian Problem As Isolated Case, As Syrian Case, Is Not Very Complicated. What Makes It Complicated Is The Interference From The Outside, Especially The Western Interference Because It's Against The Will Of The Syrian Government, While The Intervention Of The Russians, Iranians, And Hezbollah Is Because Of The Invitation Of The Syrian Government.

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.

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

My Primary Goal Is To Create Prosperity.

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George F. Kennan

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

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