![\"Assad](\"http:\/\/www.sana.sy\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Assad-Port.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> If you want to talk about what happened in Moscow, it\u2019s different from what happened in Geneva, because they invited some of the opposition, because we can\u2019t talk about one opposition; we have many different oppositions. You don\u2019t put them in one basket. You have some of them represent Syrians, some of them they don\u2019t represent anyone, and so on. So, we have common things with some of the opposition that were invited to Moscow, so this is just the beginning of the dialogue. The dialogue may take a long time. But at the end, if you want to not talk about dialogue, talk about the end results on the ground, the question is, who of those parties that we call opposition, who of them represent Syrian people and can influence the militants on the ground in order to save Syrian blood? That is the question. We don\u2019t have an answer yet, because they have to prove, we don\u2019t have to prove. We know we have our army, the army will obey the government, if the government gives an order, it will follow the order. But what about the others? Who is going to control the terrorists? That is the question.<\/p>\nQuestion 16:<\/strong> You pointed out that some countries, like France, don\u2019t want a peace conference to succeed. Why is that?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> Actually, you have two points, or two reasons, let\u2019s say. First one is not related only to the French; it\u2019s related to every official who is complicit and involved in the propaganda and the aggression against Syria during the last four years. It\u2019s about the end of this war will unmask those officials in front of their public opinion, in a country where there is public opinion. I don\u2019t mean Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where there is no public opinion anyway. But generally, they will be unmasked about the question \u201cwhat is the revolution that you mentioned, that you talked about? How could a revolution collapse or fail if you have the support of the West, the support of regional countries, all this money and armaments and so on, and you supposed that he\u2019s a dictator who is killing his good people, so the people are against him, regional countries are against him, and the West is against him, and he succeeded.It\u2019s one of two options: you\u2019re either lying to us, or you\u2019re talking about a superman. Because you don\u2019t a superman, he\u2019s a regular president, it means he could withstand for four years only because he has the public support. It doesn\u2019t mean full public support, one hundred percent, or absolute public support, but definitely have support from a part, a large amount of the Syrian people.\u201d So, this is a lie that the public opinion in the West and in other countries will ask the officials about. What about the Arab spring that turned out to be – instead of budding flowers – blood and killing and destruction? Is that the spring that you talked about? This is one reason.<\/p>\nThe other reason is more specific towards France. Not limited, but more specific, let\u2019s say. It\u2019s about the financial relation between France and the Gulf states. Maybe because they have financial difficulties, I don\u2019t know why. But this financial relations, and I don\u2019t have any proof whether this is about the vested interest of some officials in France or if it\u2019s about public interest, I don\u2019t have any proof, but at the end, these financial interests push those officials in France to exchange their values of liberty and fraternity and democracy, all the things that they used to preach, the exchange those values for petrodollars. So now those French officials and some others in the West, they don\u2019t practice what they preach anymore.<\/p>\n
Question 17:<\/strong> But the tide seems to change a little bit. You had French MPs here. It was an organized visit, or it came as a surprise to you?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> No, no. It wasn\u2019t a surprise, because it wasn\u2019t the first delegation to come to Syria.<\/p>\nQuestion 18:<\/strong> French delegation?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> French and from other countries. Different kinds of delegations, activists, mediators, some officials came to deal with us under the table, not-<\/p>\nQuestion 19:<\/strong> This was organized with your government and\u2026?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> Yes, it was officially organized, and they had a schedule when they came. It was weeks before, it wasn\u2019t a surprise.<\/p>\nQuestion 20:<\/strong> With French diplomats as well or not?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> We had the impression, and it\u2019s a strong impression, that most of the government, the main officials in the government, they know about it in advance, and they didn\u2019t oppose.<\/p>\nQuestion 21:<\/strong> So, did they send you any message?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> No, there wasn\u2019t a message, and they came to see the reality on the ground, and I think that\u2019s the reflection \u2013 not just this delegation; the delegations that came to Syria recently from different countries, especially from the West, is a reflection of not believing, not taking in with the narrative, the insidious narrative about Syria in the West by their officials. They want to know the truth, I mean it\u2019s a kind of suspicion about the whole propaganda in the West.<\/p>\nQuestion 22:<\/strong> So, in a sense, the tide is changing because probably there are some people thinking that even though it\u2019s a bad solution, it\u2019s better to deal with Bashar al-Assad than to deal with the worse solution which is going to be the Islamic State.<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think the general public thinks about the second part, it\u2019s about the first part, about what\u2019s happening and how everything we said in Syria at the beginning of the crisis they say later. They said it\u2019s peaceful, we said it\u2019s not peaceful, they\u2019ve killing – these demonstrators, that they called them peaceful demonstrators \u2013 have killed policemen. Then it became militants. They said yes, it\u2019s militants. We said it\u2019s militants, it\u2019s terrorism. They said no, it\u2019s not terrorism. Then when they say it\u2019s terrorism, we say it\u2019s Al Qaeda, they say no, it\u2019s not Al Qaeda. So, whatever we said, they say later. That created a lot of suspicion in the West. They want to come to understand this part. Why are you saying whatever Syria was saying in the beginning? Of course, in the West, the propagandists, whether officials or media, the added something only to the real story; that ISIS and al-Nusra was created of Assad, or it\u2019s because of his policy, and so on.<\/p>\nQuestion 23:<\/strong> But you freed a lot of jihadists from the prisons that went to ISIS, to the Islamic State.<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> No, that\u2019s before the crisis. They were sentenced for a few years, and when the sentence ended, they left prison. We didn\u2019t. We never did. So no, we have institutions, we have a judicial system in Syria.<\/p>\nQuestion 24:<\/strong> Anyway, Europe is facing more and more threats of terrorism linked to jihadist movements, some of them with connections here in Syria, I mean Al Qaeda or the Islamic State. And the question here: is Syria able to help the European countries in fighting these threats of terrorism?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> This is like a building; you cannot build a building without having the foundation, so what is the foundation that you need in this this case? First, you need officials in Europe to have the will to fight terrorism. This is something that we don\u2019t have to this moment. Second thing, to have prudent policies. We cannot have arrogant, stubborn officials that only adopted egotistical policies. Third, which is very important, fighting terrorism should be a value, should become a value. It cannot be a sort of opportunism, like because now you are suffering in Europe from terrorism, you\u2019re scared, you want to fight terrorism in this region. What about a few years ago? You didn\u2019t suffer.<\/p>\nQuestion 25:<\/strong> But can you help the\u2026?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> If they don\u2019t help themselves first, we cannot. If they help themselves, we are ready to help. If you build this foundation, if you have this foundation, you can go to the building. This is where you can talk about how to integrate the community in your country, how to have exchange of information with intelligence, you have many ways. Of course we can, but you need to have the foundation in order to succeed.<\/p>\nQuestion 26:<\/strong> Mr. President, let me quote, \u201cthe Syrian people aspire more freedom, justice, human rights. They aspire to more plurality and democracy.\u201d Your Foreign Minister said this in the Geneva conference. However, the state of Syria is perceived differently in the West. Till now, it\u2019s perceived as brutal, ruthless, dictatorial, and it\u2019s not just a question of image, so how is it possible to convince the people that\u2026?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> This is illogical and unrealistic, because how can somebody who kills his people and oppresses his people be supported by the same people? How? Tell me about this contradiction. Look at it from the outside. Is it palatable, can you understand? It doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\nQuestion 27:<\/strong> But, Mr. President, the reality is that if you allow me to go backwards, and try to-<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> Before the crisis.<\/p>\nQuestion 28:<\/strong> Let me just try to\u2026 you started four years ago with peaceful demonstrators that were repressed, then you are blamed, your government is blamed, for a lot of allegations of human rights violations in your own ranks, repression. You have the Cesar reported, defected from the army, with photos of massacres, of torture of the opposition. You have allegations that you have used chemical weapons. You have allegations of using the barrel bombs till now, and so, the human rights reports watcher about Syria, they are not very good for you, your government, and the Syrian Army.<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> You are talking about massive propaganda for four years. We cannot answer every one in one interview, but I will say the demonstrations never were peaceful, because in the first week, we lost many of our policemen. How? How could a peaceful demonstration kill a policeman? It wasn\u2019t peaceful, so, this is the beginning of the lies, it\u2019s the beginning of the propaganda.<\/p>\nQuestion 29:<\/strong> All lies, all the time? Four years of lies, Mr. President?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> Exactly, that\u2019s what happened. Because, how do you have ISIS? Suddenly? You don\u2019t have ISIS suddenly, you don\u2019t have armaments suddenly, you don\u2019t have al-Nusra Front suddenly. It\u2019s a long process, you can\u2019t have it just in few weeks. Suddenly, everybody is talking about ISIS. Go back to our statements from the very beginning, and you can see that the evolution of the events was going in that regard from the very beginning, and we said that. They didn\u2019t want to listen; they wanted to listen to their statements.That\u2019s what I say. It\u2019s impossible to only tell lies in the West. How can you tell the truth if you don\u2019t have an embassy in this country? How can you tell the truth if you listen to Qatar and Al-Jazeera that were paying the money to those terrorists?<\/p>\nQuestion 30:<\/strong> So you blame Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia for being the backbone of the jihadists? You have the proof?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> Very simple; what is the ideology of ISIS? What is the ideology? It\u2019s the Wahhabi ideology. Do we have it in Syria? Do we have it in Morocco? In the western Arab world? Actually, it existed in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\nErdogan is Muslim Brotherhood<\/span><\/p>\nQuestion 31:<\/strong> It\u2019s the same as in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This is the Wahhabi ideology. Second, Erdogan is Muslim Brotherhood. He\u2019s a very staunch advocate of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology which was the first organization in the history of Islam, in the beginning of the last century, who promoted violence in implementing political agenda. So, you have those, and that\u2019s enough. Going back to the Western media, in the Western media, and the American media in particular, they say 80% of the terrorists are coming from Turkey. You have another realistic one, what you called in your media Kobani which is called Ayn al-Arab. It took four months to be liberated, in spite of the attack of the alliance. Why? Actually, a similar city, the same size, and the same terrain, it took the Syrian Army two to three weeks. Why? Because it was supported logistically through Turkey on the border. They send them everything, armaments, all kinds of support. The recent event when Turkey-<\/p>\nQuestion 32:<\/strong> Did you support the Kurds? Did the Syrian Army support the Kurds?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> Of course.<\/p>\nQuestion 33:<\/strong> Because they are also fighting the Syrian Army.<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> Before the issue of Kobani. Before that, we did. Before Kobani, we supported the Kurds, because it didn\u2019t start there. It started before, and before the alliance started supporting the Kurds, we did. We sent them armaments. Of course, they\u2019re going to say no, because the Americans said \u201csay no, and we will help you.\u201d If they say yes, the Americans will be angry, just to be cautious, to take precautions about any statement they may say now that we didn\u2019t, we have all the documents about the armaments that\u2019s been sent to them, beside the air raids and so onand the bombardments and everything else.<\/p>\nQuestion 34:<\/strong> New Syrian troops are being trained in the framework of the \u201cFree Syrian Army\u201d supported by the Americans to fight against the Islamic State. Do you think you will have to fight them as well?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> You know, and I know, and everybody knows that those 5,000 were announced by the Americans, and this this is my proof that the Western officials don\u2019t have the will to fight terrorism. That is the proof. I told you, the base, the foundation, is to have the will. It means they don\u2019t have the will. If Obama said the moderate opposition is fantasy, so who do you send the money and armaments to? Reality. You don\u2019t send to the fantasy, you send it to the reality, and the reality are the extremists. And those 5,000 are going to be another support to those terrorists, because the same grassroots of the organization that\u2019s been supported by the West, by money and armaments, they joined ISIS with their armaments and with themselves.<\/p>\nQuestion 35:<\/strong> Two questions to finish this interview. This is your first interview with a journalist from a Portuguese-speaking country. Do you expect anything from these countries?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> I don\u2019t expect; I hope. I hope the first thing, which is very simple, just for the officials to tell their people the truth, the unbiased truth, without any preconceptions. Just tell your people the truth, and they’ll be able to analyze it. Second, we hope from Portugal as part of the EU to look at the Czech Republic. A small country, ten millions, but it was very wise in dealing with the crisis in Syria. They have their embassy, they can tell what\u2019s going on on the ground, because isolationism is not a policy. When you isolate yourself, when you try to isolate a country by removing your ambassadors or closing your embassies, you isolate yourself from the reality. You shouldn\u2019t isolate yourself, as Europe, from reality. We hope can play that role in the EU to shift this trend that started with the American administration of Bush; when they have a problem with somebody or some area, instead of being more involved, they cut their relation with it. This is not policy.<\/p>\nQuestion 36:<\/strong> Just one last question, Mr. President. You\u2019re a key player for any possible peace deal. Don\u2019t you feel sometimes doubts, anguish, with this tremendous responsibility? Don\u2019t you feel what history might say about you?<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> Of course, this is the most important thing that any politician or leader must think about, and it\u2019s about, first of all, about having good will and good intention to help your country. Whether you do mistakes or you do right, you do wrong; this is not the issue. People will judge you by your will, by how much you were related to your country, related to your country, how much you are a patriot, not a puppet or a marionette that\u2019s being moved from the outside. This is the most important thing; how much you do, what\u2019s the best you can do to protect your country and protect your people.<\/p>\nQuestion 37:<\/strong> Thank you, Mr. President, for this interview, and thank you for being with RTP.<\/p>\nPresident Assad:<\/strong> Thank you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Damascus, SANA-President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to Portuguese State Television, RTP, following is the full text: Question 1: In a few days, it will be 4 years since the protests began in Syria against the government of Bashar al-Assad. From then on it has been a massacre. More than 220 thousand people have died, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":30931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[429,51],"tags":[4607,4605,4606],"class_list":["post-30927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-presidency-of-arabic-syrian-republic","category-interviews","tag-failed-to-accomplish-its-duty-western-officials-have-no-desire-to-combat-terrorism","tag-president-al-assad-to-portuguese-state-tv-international-system","tag-that-is-supposed-to-solve-problems-and-protect-countries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30927"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.sana.sy\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}