PRESIDENT Bashar al-Assad has affirmed that the situation in Syria has improved dramatically because the terrorist groups, mainly ISIS, al-Nusra and like-minded groups who are Wahhabi terrorist extremists, are retreating.
In an interview given to India’s Wion TV last Friday, he was asked: ‘Who or what do you blame for the crisis in Syria today?’
President Assad said: ‘Mainly, who started this conflict was Qatar under the supervision and the endorsement of the Western countries, mainly France and the UK, at the very beginning, but when you talk about France and UK, they wouldn’t do something without the permission of the United States.
‘We all know that the real mentor is the United States, but they allow others to play different roles. So, if you want to blame who supported the terrorists and who started this blood-letting and blood-shedding in Syria, it was the West and Qatar, and later Saudi Arabia, one year later joined the same effort, and of course Turkey, we wouldn’t forget Turkey which was the main player with the terrorists in Syria from the very, very beginning.’
Following are excerpts from the interview:
Question: ‘Mr President, you spoke about how to end this blood-letting. Would you be open to a negotiated political settlement going forward, maybe underwritten by Russia or some other members of the UN Security Council?’
President Assad: ‘Of course, we have already joined these efforts since Geneva in 2014, something like this, a few years ago, it’s not only about joining that effort; you need a real effort, you need a methodical effort that could produce something in reality that could be fruitful.
‘Till this moment, we haven’t had any real political initiative that could produce something, although Astana has achieved, let’s say, partial results, through the recent de-escalation areas in Syria, which was positive in that regard, but you cannot call it a political solution till this moment.
‘A political solution is when you have all the different aspects of the problem being tackled at the same time. So, we took the initiative in dealing directly with the terrorists in some areas in order to make reconciliation, where they can give up their armaments and we can give them amnesty, and that has worked in a very proper and good way in Syria.’
Question: ‘Is Donald Trump someone you think you can do business with?’
President Assad: ‘The problem in the United States is about the whole political system, it’s not about one person. Trump’s election has proven again, for us, again and again, that the president is only a performer, he’s not a decision-maker. He’s part of different lobbies and the deep state or the deep regime as we can call it, who implement and dictate to the president what he should be doing, and the proof of what I’m saying is that Trump, after he became president, swallowed most of the promises and the words that he was boasting during his campaign.
‘He made a 180 degree turn in nearly every promise. So, why? Because the deep state wouldn’t allow him to go in a certain direction. That’s why for me dealing with him as a person, it could be, but can that person deliver? No. In the United States, the president cannot deliver, the whole state, the deep state only is the one who can deliver, and this is the problem. This deep state doesn’t accept partners around the world; they only accept puppets, and they only accept followers, they only accept proxies, that’s what they accept, and we’re not any of these.’
Question: ‘Mr President, I want to draw your attention to the events of 4th of April, when the world was told about a so-called chemical attack or a chemical incident. Now, in your estimation – and you’ve been asked this question several times before – what is the truth behind the April 4th incident, and who do you think might be behind it?’
President Assad: ‘You know, every politician can say “no, we don’t do it,” morally or for any other reasons, and the viewers can say “no, no, he’s not honest.” I wouldn’t talk about this in that traditional way. I would say let’s ask the question: would it be logical to be used? If we have it. We don’t have chemical weapons, but if you have it, if you want to use it, why would you use it in that case? One week before that alleged incident, the terrorists were advancing, we didn’t use it. So, why use it when the army was advancing and the terrorists were retreating? This is first.
‘Second, it was used – as they said, we don’t know if it’s true or not – against civilians in one of the cities. So, if the Syrian Army wanted to use those kinds of weapons, why doesn’t it use it against the terrorists who’ve been in the field, not against the civilians?
‘So, all this story doesn’t have, let’s say, legs to stand on, it’s not realistic, it’s not logical. So, who’s behind it? It was very simply the United States and the Western intelligence with the terrorists. They staged this play just to have a pretext to attack Syria, and that’s what happened a few days later when they attacked our airport, and actually they supported the terrorists, because ISIS launched an attack the same day as the American attacks on our airbase. And they wanted to demonise again, to re-demonise the Syrian state and the Syrian President. So, this is the only headline that could capture the audience and public opinion around the world.’
The interviewer pressed: ‘Does Syria have chemical weapons today? Have all your chemical weapons inventory been destroyed by the OPCW? Also, would Syria be holding on to some chemical weapons or hiding them? Your thoughts, Mr President?’
President Assad: ‘Actually, they announced a few years ago that Syria is devoid of chemical weapons. Even John Kerry announced that Syria is free of any chemical weapons. They wouldn’t have done so if they weren’t sure about this. No, we don’t have, and we don’t have the facilities now, even if we wanted to do so.’
Question: ‘What are the lessons one could learn, Syria, from the Indian experience of combating terrorism, extremism, radicalisation, and also how can India learn from your experience of combating the Islamic State or Daesh as it’s called here?’
President Assad: ‘To support terrorist organisations for political agenda, this is something very dangerous. It’s beyond only India and beyond Syria. If you look at the map of the world now, if you look at Libya, at Yemen, at what happened recently in Egypt, in France, and recently in the UK, it tells you that terrorism has no borders, so what we have to do is not only to learn from our experience, if you talk about Syria and India, it could be very similar, we could learn a lot from each other, but it’s more than that; we need to have an international coalition against terrorism, a genuine one, to work against terrorism, to learn from each other, and to support each other in the fight against terrorism.
‘As you mentioned, we can cooperate, but cooperation is not only intelligence, it’s about the ideology, it’s about the politics that’s been supporting these terrorists or this terrorism, how we can work together politically to prevent terrorism from spreading and prevailing in the world.’
Question: ‘How do you explain this, or the role of countries such as Saudi Arabia in the region?’
President Assad: ‘The Wahhabi institution, the extremism or the extremists in Saudi Arabia defend the state because it’s their state, it’s their own state, so it’s one. You cannot talk about terrorism and the Saud family as two entities, I have to be very frank with you. That’s why they didn’t deflect; they exported the terrorism or the extremism or the Wahhabi ideology to the rest of the world. Nearly every “madrasa” in Asia, in Europe, every mosque, has been supported financially and ideologically through books and through every other means by the Wahhabi institution. That’s why I wouldn’t say, no, they didn’t deflect, they exported.’
Question: ‘And talking specifically about the ongoing campaign against the Islamic State or Daesh, how many more months would you give the Daesh before it’s pushed out of your sovereign territory?’
President Assad: ‘If you want to talk about our war, regardless of the influence of the external wars, ISIS is not very strong, it would take a few months, even with al-Nusra. Now, the problem is that ISIS has been supported by the United States. The United States attacked our army that’s been fighting ISIS three times during the last six months or so, and every time they attacked our forces in that area, ISIS attacked our forces at the same time and took over that area. So, the realistic answer is: that depends on how much international support ISIS will get. That’s my answer.’
Question: ‘Mr President, you’ve been in power since the year 2000, it’s been 17 years now, and many world leaders have come and gone; President Obama in the US, President Sarkozy, President Hollande in France, and many countries around the world, but you’ve survived, you’ve stayed there, you’ve stayed the course. What’s your secret of success?’
President Assad: ‘I don’t have a secret; it’s the Syrian secret, it’s the public support. If you have public support, you can withstand any storm, that’s a very simple fact.
‘If you don’t, you would have withstood for a few weeks or a few months, not few years, you cannot. I don’t think the battle is the president’s battle as the Western media tries to portray. It’s not my battle, I’m not fighting for my position, I don’t care about that position; I only care about the public support. So, for us as Syrians, it’s a national war, everybody is fighting for his country, not for the president. This is the secret, maybe, that the West didn’t discover, because they were too superficial to analyse the situation in Syria. So, actually, it’s not a secret; it’s something they didn’t see, but it’s not a secret.’
Question: ‘And Mr President, have you ever considered a life outside Syria, maybe stepping down, or life outside Syria?’
President Assad: ‘Stepping down, as president, because you came through elections, will be through elections, or when you notice that the Syrian people will not support you, because if they don’t support you, you cannot achieve, you cannot produce. This is where you have to leave.
‘Because the situation is not like that, and you’re in the middle of the storm, Syria is in the middle of the storm, I cannot say I’m going to give up and leave. This is going to be very selfish and very un-patriotic, let’s say, if we can call it this way. No, in the middle of a storm, you have to do your job as president till the people tell you “go, leave, you cannot help your country.” This is where you have to leave.
‘So, this is regarding leaving Syria, but for me personally, to leave Syria, no, it’s not an option for me. Since I was young, I was, how to say, brought up as a person who can only live in his country, not any other country.’
Question: ‘Mr. President, the last 17 years you’ve seen one crisis after another, starting from 2003 Iraq war till now. 17 years is a long time, do you at all make time to relax, maybe to watch a movie, hear some music, spend time with family and kids?’
President Assad: ‘The family is a duty; it’s not relaxation, it’s not entertainment, it’s a duty. You have to find time for your family like you have to find time for everything. If you don’t feel your family, you cannot feel the other families that have been suffering in your country. So, of course, but for the entertainment, it’s not only a matter of time, it’s a matter of feeling.
‘Now, you cannot feel the entertainment while everybody surrounding you is suffering from terrorism; it’s a matter of psychology. So, it’s not my interest at this time. I think most of the families in Syria, they don’t have this interest. The interest now is the daily survival for many families.’
Question: ‘Mr President, is the worst behind you?’
President Assad: ‘I hope so, I hope. I mean, because things now are moving in the right direction which is a better direction, because we are defeating the terrorists, unless the West and other countries and their allies, their puppets, support those extremists in a very, how to say, massive way, I’m sure the worst is behind us.’
