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.

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.

My decision was, and the decision of the different institutions, and the decision of the different officials in Syria - I'm on top of them - was to have dialogue, to fight terrorists, and to reform as a response at the very beginning, response to the allegations, let's say, at that time, that they needed reform in Syria, we responded.

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.

It should be known that Israel is based on treachery.

You look at [terrorists] faces, they look foreigners, but where are they coming from ? How precise this estimate is difficult to tell, but definitely the majority are Al-Qaeda.

I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.