The fact that there are people who criticize me doesn't mean that people hate me.

Before the 11th of September, in my discussions with many officials of the United States, some of them are Congressmen, I used to say that "don't deal with terrorists as playing games." It's a different story. You're going to pay the price if you're not wise in dealing with terrorists.

It's not about me, again, this fight is not my fight, it's not the fight of the government ; it's the fight of the country, of the Syrian people.

We cannot tell anything about what [Donald Trump] is going to do, but if, let's say if he is going to fight the terrorists, of course we are going to be ally, natural ally in that regard with the Russian, with the Iranian, with many other countries who wanted to defeat the terrorists.

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.

Almost all countries have natural dividing lines, and when ethnic and religious partition occurs in one country, it'll soon happen elsewhere.

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