António Guterres role as Secretary-General in bringing all powers together is very essential` and we hope he can succeed, it's not easy of course.

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.

For the West, they wanted to undermine the Syrian positions. For the petrodollar countries like Saudi Arabia, they're thinking undermining Syria will undermine Iran on sectarian basis.

Reform has to be based on opening your mind and opening the mind does not come from decrees or laws. It comes from a whole set of circumstances, which if you do not have, anything you do will be not productive or will be counter-productive.

We wouldn't have withstood for two years and a half. We would have disintegration of the army, disintegration of the whole institution in the state ; we would have disintegration of Syria if that was the case. It can't be tolerated in Syria. I'm talking about the normal reaction of the people. If it's not a national army, it cannot have the support, and if it doesn't have the public support of every sect, it cannot do its job and advance recently. It cannot. The army of the family doesn't make national war.

You can't say "the people of Aleppo" because the majority of the people of Aleppo are living in the area under the control of the government, so you cannot talk about the people of Aleppo.

If the rebels or the terrorists in this region or any other group have [chemical warfare], this could happen, I don't know. I'm not a fortuneteller to tell you what's going to happen.