Peace in Syria is not only our priority; it's a Middle Eastern priority, and when the Middle East is stable, the rest of the world is stable, because the Middle East is the heart of the world geographically and geopolitically, and Syria is the heart of the Middle East geographically and geopolitically.

We are dealing with treachery and threats, which accompanied the establishment of Israel.

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.

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 do not understand the difference between peace and a peace treaty. If you want to have real peace with normal relations between people, you need to have comprehensive peace.

Lebanon was under Israeli occupation, up to its capital, but we did not consider that a disaster. Why? Because it was very clear that there are ways to resist.

As a state, as a government, in 2001 we proposed to the United Nations to empty or to get rid of every WMD in the Middle East, and the United States stood against that proposal. This is our conviction and policy.