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Syria Is In A State Of War Since Its Land Was Occupied For More Than Four Decades, And The Nature Of The Frontier In Syria Implies That Most Of The Army Is In Inhabited Areas, Most Of The Centers Are In Inhabited Areas.

-Bashar Al-Assad

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Syria Is In A

Bashar Al-Assad

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Syria Is In A State Of War Since Its Land Was Occupied For More Than Four Decades, And The Nature Of The Frontier In Syria Implies That Most Of The Army Is In Inhabited Areas, Most Of The Centers Are In Inhabited Areas.

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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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Even A President Makes Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

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

It 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.

Politics Is About Realities, Not Logic.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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'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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

We 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.

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.

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.

This War [in Syria] Is Going To Support Al-qaeda And The Same People That Killed Americans In The 11th Of September. The Second Thing That We Want To Tell Congress, That They Should Ask And That What We Expect Them To Ask This Administration About The Evidence That They Have Regarding The Chemical Story And Allegations That They Presented.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[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.

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.

Look At The Results Of Regime Change In Iraq. You Can't Possibly Claim That It Was Successful.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

[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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Armies Are Not Only For Offensives.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Difficult Situations

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

[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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

In Any War, People Will Pay The Price.

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 ?

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.

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.

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

As A State, As A Government, In 2001 We Proposed To The United Nations To Empty Or To Get Rid Of Every Wmd In The Middle East, And The United States Stood Against That Proposal. This Is Our Conviction And Policy.

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.

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

There Can Be No Peace Without Unity.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The Logical Thing Is To Implement The Arab Defense Agreement.

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

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

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

We'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.

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.

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

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

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

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].

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.

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

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

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.

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

Israel Does Not Care About The International Public Opinion.

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 !

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

We 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.

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 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.

But For Us, In Syria, We Have Principles. We'll Do Anything To Prevent The Region From Another Crazy War. It's Not Only Syria. Because It Will Start In Syria.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Hizbullah Is Not A Militia.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

In The End A Lie Is A Lie.

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.

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

Any External Support, If You Want To Call It Support, Let's Use This World, Is... How To Say... It's Going To Be Additional, But It's Not The Base To Depend On More Than The Syrian Support.

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