Bashar al-Assad Quotes

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.

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.

Why should you use a term [rebels] in the United States and England and maybe other countries and use another term in Syria ? This is a double standard that we don't accept.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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].

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.

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 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.

We cannot use jihadists because it's like shooting yourself in the foot.

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.

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.

Nobody knows [who they are] because when [terrorists] are dead and they are killed, they don't have any ID.

It's not exactly fair to make a mistake yourself and then start blaming others for it.

In the end a lie is a lie.

Opposition doesn't mean to take arms and kill people and destroy everything.

You cannot reform your society or institution without opening your mind.

Circumstances don't matter, only my state of being matters. What state of being are you choosing?

At the end, I said [chemical weapons] is something not to be discussed with anyone.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Israeli interests are not necessarily in harmony with the American interests.

I am president, I don't own the country so they are not my forces.

My primary goal is to create prosperity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Conversely, it is correct to say that bringing about peace would be the best way to fight terror.

The army is made of the people ; it cannot be made of robots.

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.

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.

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.