THE cessation of hostilities agreed last week is ‘a glimmer of hope for all Syrians,’ President Bashar al-Assad has said.
n an interview with ARD German television, President Assad cautioned: ‘But usually, when you have a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities or any such agreement, which is bilateral, it’s going to be difficult to keep and save, let alone when it’s multilateral.
‘When you talk about multilaterals, and when I say multilaterals you’re talking about more than one hundred factions of terrorists and so many other countries that support them. Or let’s say you talk about two camps with contradicting goals regarding the cessation of hostilities or that agreement. So, let’s say we hope, and we are going to do our job to make it work, but it’s not enough to have the good will.’
He said that ‘the terrorists breached the agreement from the very first hour. As for the Syrian Army, we have refrained ourselves from retaliating in order to give the chance for the agreement to survive. That’s what we can do, but at the end everything has a limit. It depends on the other side.’
He was asked: ‘Mr. President, you accepted a transitional process. What are the next steps?’
President Assad: ‘Actually, the process is to have a national unity government, where whoever wants to come join our government, to be a part of it; this government should prepare for the next constitution. After the constitution, you should have parliamentary elections that are going to define the shape of the next Syria, or the new Syria. So, these are the main steps of the transitional period.’
‘How can you say it’s possible to hold elections during the civil war?’ asked the interviewer.
President Assad: ‘First of all, there’s no civil war, because the definition is wrong. Civil war is when you have certain lines, social lines, based let’s say, on sects or ethnicities or any similar lines, so we don’t have those lines now, because in the areas controlled by the government, there is a mix, let’s say you can find in it every colour of the Syrian social spectrum. So, you cannot talk about civil war as a definition. Actually, it’s the terrorists versus the rest.
‘Second, for the elections, it’s not a hobby, first of all. It’s not the point of view of the president or the mood of the government. It doesn’t reflect all of that; it reflects the constitution. Our war is about independence of our country, because they want to depose the government and the president, other countries, mainly the West and Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It’s about destroying the state, and it’s about making Syria a sectarian country like Lebanon, and maybe like Iraq.
‘The constitution today is the symbol of unity, the symbol of sovereignty, and the symbol of an independent country. We have to be adherent to the constitution. The constitution is not what’s written on the paper; it’s how you practice it. One of them is the elections, and this is not the right of the government; this is the right of every Syrian citizen. They have to decide whether they want it or not. If you ask any Syrian, everybody wants to have a new parliament.’
The interviewer said: ‘The overwhelming majority of countries, organisations of the world, say that there might be no solution for the Syrian question with you in power. Are you willing to step back?’
President Assad: ‘For those countries and those officials? No, of course not, because it’s not their business. That’s why I never responded. It’s been five years since they said that, and we never give a damn to what they say. It’s only our business, it’s Syria’s business. Only the Syrian citizens have the right to say who they want to be the president.
‘As a German, you don’t accept me or any other one to tell you who is going to be your chancellor, and what sort of political system. You don’t accept it, and we don’t accept it. So, no, regardless of whatever they say, my political fate is only linked to the will of the Syrian people.’
He was pressed: ‘But in general, if the conditions are that the Syrian people want you to step back, would you be willing?’
President Assad: ‘Of course, definitely. When the Syrian people want me to leave that position, I have to do it right away, without any hesitation, because if you want to succeed as an official, as president, or as elected prime minister, whatever, you need the support of the public. Without that support you cannot achieve anything, so what would you do in your position. So, they are linked together; their will with your ability to achieve something or to succeed.’
Assad was asked: ‘Why then it took so long that you granted full access to the besieged areas in Syria?’
President Assad: ‘Actually, no, that’s not true. We didn’t take a long time to give that access. Actually, the Western media took a long time to recognise what’s going on, on the ground.
‘I’m being very frank with you. Let’s ask a very logical and realistic question at the same time: what they called “besieged areas” have been surrounded by the army for years now, and those areas are still fighting the army and shelling mortars on the army and on neighbouring cities and so on.
‘The question: how could we prevent them from having food while we cannot prevent them from having armaments? Is it logical? It doesn’t work. We either make a full embargo, or you cannot make an embargo. So, we don’t make embargo for many reasons, not only for the humanitarian aspects and for the values that we believe in and for our role as a government to be responsible for every Syrian, but actually, because if you do that you will send those civilians into the lap of the terrorists.
‘The other practical example, how could we make an embargo on such cities that you mentioned and maybe other cities that’s been mentioned recently, and at the same time we are still sending salaries to al-Raqqa which is under the control of ISIS, and we’re still sending vaccines. How can we make an embargo here and not make an embargo there? This is a contradiction, it’s not realistic what you’ve mentioned.’
It was suggested: ‘You’re mentioning the elections in Syria, coming on in April maybe. Wouldn’t you just deal with a fraction of the Syrian people, because so many left, and they left because they wanted to avoid the chaos in Syria.’
President Assad: ‘Yes, but for people to leave the country doesn’t mean the country doesn’t have its own population. I mean, in the end, Syria is not empty, and the majority of the Syrians still live in Syria, not vice versa, and that was the narrative before the presidential elections, and most of the world was surprised that those refugees participated in very high percentage in the elections outside Syria. So, I think every Syrian would like to see something new within his country, because this change will give hope to the people, and that’s natural in every culture, in every country.’
The interviewer asked: ‘The war in Syria destabilises the whole area, the surrounding states like Turkey, like Iraq, Jordon, Lebanon, but more, it effects already Europe. So, large parts of the world are affected by the Syrian war. What are you doing to stop this nightmare?’
President Assad: ‘It’s not only about Syria. Our job is to do two things, since the beginning of the crisis we adopted two tracks: making dialogue with everyone; countries, states, factions, militants, and so on, in order to preserve stability or restore stability.
‘The other one is to fight the terrorists who don’t want to give up armaments, this is the only track. But the question here is: what are the other parties willing to do? Part of the disaster or nightmare that you’re talking about is not only because the terrorists are killing and destroying; it’s because of the Western embargo on Syria that affected every Syrian citizen with no exception.
‘What are those officials ready to do in order to help alleviate this pain and nightmare in Syria? What are they going to do in order to make pressure and exert influence on countries supporting terrorists like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar in order to force them to stop smuggling terrorists and armaments and giving them all kinds of logistical support. That’s the question. When all those countries agree, or let’s say, have the will to do their duty regarding this, I can assure you that we won’t have a problem to stop this nightmare in Syria.’
