Background Image

...

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.

-Bashar Al-Assad

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Let's Presume That A

Bashar Al-Assad

...

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.

Views: 72771

Topic

More From Bashar Al-Assad

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.

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.

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.

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

None Of Us And None Of The Arabs Trust Israel.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

This Is Where We Can Discuss The Evidence [of The Chemical Weapons ], But He Doesn't Have It. He Didn't Present It Because He Doesn't Have It, Kerry Doesn't Have It. No One In Your Administration Has It. If They Had It, They Would Have Presented It To You As Media From The First Day.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Any Cooperation That Doesn't Go Through The Syrian Government Is Not Legal. If It's Not Legal, We Cannot Cooperate With, And We Don't Recognize And We Don't Accept.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

There Can Be No Peace Without Unity.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

In Any War, People Will Pay The Price.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Politics Is About Realities, Not Logic.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

[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 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.

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.

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.

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 Most Significant Indicator That There Is No Disaster In Iraq Is The Fact That There Is No Exodus.

Since Its Very Inception, Israel Has Been A Threat.

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'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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

"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.

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.

[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.

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.

Israel Does Not Care About The International Public Opinion.

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

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

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

The Logical Thing Is To Implement The Arab Defense Agreement.

In The End A Lie Is A Lie.

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

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.

Armies Are Not Only For Offensives.

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.

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

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.

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 !

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

There's A Video On Youtube Where The Terrorists Clearly Make Trials [of Chemical Weapons] On A Rabbit And Kill The Rabbit And Said "this Is How We're Going To Kill The Syrian People."

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

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 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.

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.

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.

We Feel Pain For Every Syrian Victim.

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.

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

[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.

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.

Hizbullah Is Not A Militia.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 ?

My Primary Goal Is To Create Prosperity.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It's Very Simple ; Once The Western Countries Stop Supporting Those Terrorists And Making Pressure On Their Puppet Countries And Client States Like Saudi Arabia And Turkey And Others, You'll Have No Problem In Syria. It Will Be Solved Easily.

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.

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.

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.

[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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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].

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.

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.

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.

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

Sooner Or Later

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.

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.

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.

I Don't Believe In War, I Believe In The Principle Of Deterrence.

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".

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Trending Author

Evander Holyfield

Christopher Nolan

Douglas Hofstadter

Trishelle Cannatella

Category