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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.

-Bashar Al-Assad

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The Most Important Part

Bashar Al-Assad

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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.

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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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Logical Thing Is To Implement The Arab Defense Agreement.

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.

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.

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.

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

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".

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.

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

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

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.

In Any War, People Will Pay The Price.

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

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

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.

[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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

As 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

My Primary Goal Is To Create Prosperity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

We 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

[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.

There Is No Good War.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Sooner Or Later

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

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 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.

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 ?

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Since Its Very Inception, Israel Has Been A Threat.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

None Of Us And None Of The Arabs Trust Israel.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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].

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

[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.

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.

We Feel Pain For Every Syrian Victim.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

It'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.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ?

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.

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

In The End A Lie Is A Lie.

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.

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

Even A President Makes Mistakes.

Making Mistakes

Hizbullah Is Not A Militia.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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."

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

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

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