Question 1: Mr. President, we are already into the sixth year of the Syrian war. After the recent victories achieved by the Syrian Army in Aleppo and Palmyra, and the ongoing reconciliations, is there a glimmer of hope of an end to the Syrian war?
President Assad: Of course, for without hope neither the country, nor the people, nor the state could withstand six years of an extremely ferocious war supported by tens of regional and Western countries, some of the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world. Without hope, there wouldn’t have been a will. But the question is: how to turn this hope into reality? This has been possible so far through two practical approaches. The first is fighting terrorism, regardless of the different names and categories given to terrorist organizations, and the second is through achieving reconciliations with all those who want to lay down their weapons, return to their normal life, and to the embrace of their country. There has been progress on both fronts: in fighting terrorism and achieving reconciliations. That’s why I say there is more hope now than in the past years.
Question 2: In the negotiations conducted previously in Astana and now in Geneva, most negotiators on the other side belonged to the opposition which upholds Wahhabi, Salafi, and Jihadi thought. Why are you negotiating with these people in the first place? And is there in reality a moderate opposition as described by the media?
President Assad: This is a very important question, because
Western officials, most prominently former US President Obama, said that the moderate opposition was an illusion or a fantasy.This is by their admission, they, who supported that opposition and gave it a false moderate cover. So, this moderate opposition does not exist.
The opposition which exists is a Jihadi opposition in the perverted sense of Jihad of course. It is also indoctrinated in the perverted sense that does not accept neither dialogue nor a solution except through terrorism.
That is why we cannot, practically, reach any actual result with this part of the opposition. The evidence is that during the Astana negotiations they started their attack on the cities of Damascus and Hama and other parts of Syria, repeating the cycle of terrorism and the killing of innocents.
This opposition, between brackets, because it cannot be called opposition, these terrorists cannot be an opposition and cannot help reach a solution. Apart from that, these terrorist groups are themselves linked to the agendas of foreign countries. They do not belong to a certain current or movement among the Syrian people that seeks political reform or a certain solution, neither before nor during the war.
Another part of these groups might look political in the sense that they do not carry arms, but they support terrorism. A third part is linked to the Saudi, Turkish, and Western agenda.
Question 3: Why are you negotiating with them?
President Assad: We do that because, in the beginning, many people did not believe that these groups do not want to lay down their weapons and move towards political action. We went in order to prove to all those who have doubts about this that these groups cannot engage in politics, and that they are terrorist groups at heart and will remain so to the end.
Question 4: The world has declared war on terrorism. Do you believe that declaration and in what they are doing today, and can we say that it’s only Syria that is fighting terrorism today?
President Assad: The world that declared war consists practically of Western countries which themselves support terrorism. Most countries of the world are against terrorism. They do not declare that, but they have been practically cooperating with us in one way or another during the war, and before the war, because terrorism did not start only with the war on Syria. Terrorism has always existed in the world and has become more widespread as a result of the different wars in the Middle East. But the Western countries which declared war on terrorism still support it up till now. They do not fight it. It is used only in name for domestic consumption. The fact of the matter is that they use terrorism as a card to achieve different political agendas, even when this terrorism backfires and claims victims in their own countries. But they do not acknowledge this fact.
As to who is fighting terrorism in Syria, it is basically the Syrian Arab Army. This is not only a claim because there are facts on the ground which prove it. The Syrian Arab Army has been able to make these achievements in fighting terrorists thanks, in the first place, to the Syrian fighters’ will, and thanks to popular support. Without popular support, it is not possible to achieve such victories. However, there has been verystrong support from our allies, whether it was Iran, Russia, or Hezbollah from Lebanon.
Question 5: Does the Syrian Army represent all sects, ethnicities and minorities in Syria?
President Assad: Of course, that is self-evident. An army that represents part of the Syrian people cannot win in a war taking place throughout Syria. That is self-evident, regardless of how it is portrayed in the West.
At the beginning of the war, the terms used by the terrorists themselves or in the media hostile to Syria in the West and in our region, wanted to portray the war as taking place between sects. This image was widespread in the West. Had this been real, Syria would have been partitioned from the first months of the war. It wouldn’t have withstood for six years as a unified people. It is true that the terrorists control some areas, but the parts controlled by the Syrian state include all parts of the spectrum of the Syrian people. More importantly, they have some of the terrorists’ families and people who fled from terrorist-controlled areas to state-controlled areas. If this Syrian Army, and behind it the Syrian government, do not represent all the Syrian people, it wouldn’t have been possible to see this unified picture of the Syrian people.
Question 6: Mr. President, there is a question I have to ask: if there has been security cooperation between the Syrian government and the European states, would have we avoided the terrorist operations which have reached France, Belgium, etc.? I ask this question because after the terrorist operations in Paris, the former head of French intelligence said that you have provided them with names and documents about terrorists, and they refused to accept them. Did they really refuse to accept them? And had there been cooperation, would have we been able to avoid these terrorist operations?
President Assad: No, he was probably speaking about cooperation before the war, because after the beginning of the war and the French position in support of the terrorists, Syria stopped security cooperation with those countries, because there cannot be security cooperation and political hostility at the same time.There should be political agreement, on the one hand, and agreement in other areas, including security, on the other.
As to whether it would have been possible to prevent such attacks in Europe through this security cooperation, in normal circumstances, the answer would be yes. But under current circumstances,
the answer is no, because Europe, or a number of European countries, support terrorists on a large scale, send to Syria tens of thousands of terrorists, or support them directly and indirectly, logistically, with arms, money, political cover, and everything. When you reach this stage of supporting terrorists – and here we are talking about tens of thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands in Syria and neighboring areas – security cooperation becomes of limited effectiveness in such a case.Security cooperation focuses on tens or hundreds of individuals, but cannot be effective when there are tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of terrorists.
If Europe wants to protect itself at this stage, it should first stop supporting terrorists in Syria. Assuming that we wanted to cooperate with them, no results can be achieved in these circumstances. We will not do that, of course, when they support terrorism. They should stop supporting terrorists immediately in any shape or form.
Question 7: Mr. President, I would like to go back to Croatia. In 2009, you visited the Croatian capital Zagreb and met Croatian officials. At that time, I read a statement by Your Excellency in which you said that Croatia is a friendly country and the Croatian people is a brotherly people, etc. Do you still consider the Croatian people a friend of Syria, particularly after the scandal related to arms shipments from Croatia to Washington, and then to Saudi Arabia and Jordan, which ultimately fell in the hands of the terrorists?
President Assad: Certainly. The Croatian people is friendly people, and our relations are decades old. We are talking about a relationship which has lasted for generations and is still going on. We do not hold the Croatian people responsible for errors made by their governments.
More importantly, if we try to monitor the public opinion in Croatia in relation to what’s going on in Syria, we’ll find that in comparison with other countries, this public opinion has been, throughout the war in general, closer to understanding what is going on in Syria than many other European peoples. Had this relationship and this friendship not been a genuine one, it would have been difficult for the Croatian people to understand what’s going on in Syria.
That’s why I would like to stress that what happened concerning the arms shipment that reached the terrorists was one of the ‘achievements’ of the former Croatian government, perhaps for financial interests, or maybe for political interests in the form of giving in to pressure exerted by other big Western powers. But, in any way, they sold the interests and principles of the Croatian people in return for petrodollars, or in the service of the narrow political interests of those officials.
Question 8: Is it possible to restore political and diplomatic relations, and probably economic relations, for Croatia has many interests in Syria?
President Assad: Of course, this is certainly possible, but this depends on the political orientations of the existing governments. If there have been policy mistakes, particularly those made by previous governments, it is very easy for future governments, or the existing one, to repair these policies. We ask these governments for nothing except thinking first of their peoples’ interests, and second of the international law which is based primarily on the sovereignty of other countries and non-intervention in their internal affairs. We have never, throughout our history and since relations started between us and Croatia now and former Yugoslavia in the past, carried out any hostile act against these countries. We have always considered them friends. What is the justification for a government to send weapons to terrorists in Syria to be used in killing innocent Syrians. I don’t think there is a justification for this; and we hope that the present government does not accept this.
Question 9: There is a large number of Jihadis or terrorists who came from the Balkans. Do you have information about their numbers?
President Assad:
There is no accurate information, because of the existence of our Turkish neighbor led by the criminal Erdogan who creates all the circumstances necessary to support and strengthen the presence of those terrorists in Syria. This does not allow us to control the borders, and consequently does not allow for accurate statistics about the number of terrorists who go in and out. But the issue is not about the nationalities of these terrorists, because you know that terrorists look at the whole world as a single arena. They care neither about the national dimension nor about political borders. So, the danger to your country, or to Europe in general, does not come only from European terrorist. It is true that a European can be more dangerous because he knows the region in detail; but he will come accompanied by other terrorists from other countries, terrorists who share the same doctrine, aspirations, and ideas, in order to carry out terrorist acts in those countries. So, when we talk about the number of terrorists in Syria, we are certainly talking about hundreds of thousands, at least more than a hundred thousand. Of course, they come and go, and some of them are killed in battle; but this is our estimate of the numbers.
Question 10: Mr. President, average people in Europe or the world ask about the causes of this attack on Syria and the attempts to bring Your Excellency down. And everybody talks about the reform which you have introduced. What’s the reason behind the calls for bringing you down?
President Assad: The reason is old, simple, and clear. Those Western countries, led by the United States, in partnership mainly with Britain and France, and unfortunately some European countries which did not have a colonial history, do not accept independent states and do not accept peer relations. They want satellite states which implement their policies.
Of course, we are not against common interests with other states, with any state. Big states have interests around the world and we, as a state, have interests in our region. We are not a superpower, but when we work, based on interests, with those states, the interests should be joint interests. They want us to act for their interests against ours. That’s why we have always been in a state of struggle with these states over our interests.
For instance, we want the peace process, while they want submission instead of peace. They want us to have peace without rights, which is not reasonable.They want us to give up our sovereignty, to abandon our rights which are acknowledged by international law, Security Council resolutions, and the numerous votes at United Nations for the return of our lands. These are mere examples. There are many similar issues over which they consider Syria too independent a state. That’s why they thought that waging war on Syria and replacing the current government with a client government would make it easier and better to achieve their narrow interests