Terrorism is a state of mind that on the one hand has to do with ignorance and, on the other hand, can be attributed to a feeling of desperation over the political situation, which at some point takes the form of revenge.

Our soldiers in another area were attacked chemically. Our soldiers - they went to the hospital as casualties because of chemical weapons, but in the area where they said the government used chemical weapons, we only had video and we only have pictures and allegations. We're not there ; our forces, our police, our institutions don't exist there. How can you talk about what happened if you don't have evidence ?

You in Lebanon, your power is no match to Israel. Israel, militarily, is more powerful than you and maybe it is more powerful than all the Arab countries, or most of them.

We, in Syria, our point of view stems from our experience.

To have opposition ? We have it, and you can go and meet with them. We have some of them within the government, we have some of them outside the government. They are opposition. We have it.

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.

The problem with the West is that they start with political reform going towards democracy.