To have or not to have [chemical weapons] is a possibility, but to depend on what media says is nonsense, or to depend on some of the reports of the intelligence is nonsense and that was proven when they invaded Iraq ten years ago and they said "Iraq has stockpiles of WMD" and it was proven after the invasion that this was false ; it was fraud. So, we can't depend on what one magazine wrote.

I don't have support. Not me ; all Syria. Every agreement is between every class and every sector in Syria ; government, people, trade, military, culture, everything ; it's like the cooperation between your country and any other country in the world. It's the same cooperation. It's not about me ; it's not support for the crisis.

I don't believe that in a couple of months Erdogan and the United States regime, and the Western regimes in general, and of course Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are going to stop the support of the terrorists.

This is the Middle East, where every week you have something new; so whatever you talk about this week will not be valuable next week.

What the army is doing is cleaning those areas, and the indication that the army is strong is that it's making advancement in that area. It never went to one area and couldn't enter to it - that's an indication. How could that army do that if it's a family army or a sect army ? What about the rest of the country who support the government ? It's not realistic, it doesn't happen. Otherwise, the whole country will collapse.

On the border area with Lebanon where [Hezbollah forces] want to protect themselves and cooperate with us, but they don't exist all over Syria.

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.