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.

Using terrorism or jihadists or extremists for any political agenda is immoral.

You cannot have democracy without the institutions. You cannot have a democracy that is built on the moods of self-interested people.

If you don't win and the terrorists win, Syria wouldn't exist anymore.

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.

Syria is geographically and politically in the middle of the Middle East.

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.