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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.