Bashar Al-Assad Quotes

Those who arrived on America's tanks are not credible in Iraq.

Using terrorism or jihadists or extremists for any political agenda is immoral.

Tayyip Erdoğan is megalomaniac President, he is not stable. He lives during the Ottoman era, he doesn't live in the current time. He's out of touch with the reality.

Freedom and democracy are nothing but instruments, just like stability. The goal is called progress and growth. Anyone who puts freedom ahead of stability is hurting growth.

You cannot reform your society or institution without opening your mind.

It is not my democracy as a person; it is our democracy as a society.

That's the problem with the American position; they think that they are the police of the world.

You cannot have democracy without the institutions. You cannot have a democracy that is built on the moods of self-interested people.

The sarin gas is a very primitive gas. You can have it done in the backyard of a house ; it's a very primitive gas. So, it's not something complicated.

If there is any change regarding that hope, we should ask the Syrian people, not anyone else in the world.

We're not sure that if there's chemical weapon used and who used it. We can't talk about virtual things, we have to talk about facts.

We are ready to cooperate in any way to achieve stability in Syria, of course taking into consideration the interest of the country, and the will of the Syrian people.

The armament of the government is legal armament. Any other armament is not legal.

I will tell [Barack Obama] very simply : present what you have as evidence to the public, be transparent.

Even a president makes mistakes.

Why should you use a term [rebels] in the United States and England and maybe other countries and use another term in Syria ? This is a double standard that we don't accept.

You have different parties, different factions, you have different ideologies ; you have everything in Middle East region now.

My country and me, we are part of this region, we're not separated. We cannot discuss it as Syria or as me ; it should be as part, as a whole, as comprehensive. That's how we have to look at it.

In the initiative that we issued at the beginning of year 2013 we said every party with no exceptions as long as they give up their armaments.

There is no good war.

It is natural that we should always expect an Israeli attack, even when it does not threaten.

In the end a lie is a lie.

That the rebels or the terrorists used the chemical weapons in northern Aleppo five months ago [in 2013].

If you don't win and the terrorists win, Syria wouldn't exist anymore.

Terrorists have been supported by tens of foreign countries, so Syria alone wouldn't be able to face this kind of war without the help of its friends.

Opposition is different from terrorism. Opposition is a political movement.

You said treaties, and a Russian official said ; we have not agreement... contracts, that we have to fulfill, and those contracts are like any country ; you buy armaments, you buy anything you want.

To have opposition ? We have it, and you can go and meet with them. We have some of them within the government, we have some of them outside the government. They are opposition. We have it.

Revolution should be Syrian, cannot be revolution imported from abroad.

We don't say that we don't have it, we're still secular in Syria, but with the time, this secularism will be eroded.

When you talk about cooperation, it means cooperation between two legal governments, not cooperation between foreign government and any faction within Syria.

The part in Aleppo, what [people] call it the eastern part, is occupied by the terrorists for the last three years, and they have been using the civilians as human shields.

We cannot use jihadists because it's like shooting yourself in the foot.

We can say, you can win the war only when you restore stability in Syria.

Any external support, if you want to call it support, let's use this world, is... how to say... it's going to be additional, but it's not the base to depend on more than the Syrian support.

We never said that the majority [of the terrorists] are not Syrians, but we said that the minority is what they call "free Syrian army." That's what we said.

We feel pain for every Syrian victim.

We have to be there to get the evidence like what happened in Aleppo when we had evidence. And because the United States didn't send the team, we sent the evidence to the Russians.

You should expect everything. Not necessarily through the government, the governments are not the only player in [Middle East] region.

You hardly find any military base in distant areas from the [Syria] cities unless it's an airport or something like this, but most of the military bases or centers within inhabited areas.

We have the precedent of Collin Powell ten years ago, when he showed the evidence, it was false, and it was forged.

The United States accused Syria, and because you accused you have to bring evidence [of chemical weapons], this first of all. We have to find evidences when we are there.

In Aleppo we had the missile itself, and the material, and the sample from the sand, from the soil, and samples from the blood [of chemical weapons].

That's all before the crisis. We always have this kind of cooperation with Iran [Supplies, weaponry].

We're not in the area where the alleged chemical attack happened. I said alleged. We're not sure that anything happened.

Any American strike will not destroy as much as the terrorists have already destroyed in Syria ; sometimes the repercussions could be many doubles the strike itself.

When you talk about Al-Qaeda it doesn't matter if he's Syrian or American or from Europe or from Asia or Africa.

We are against any WMD, any weapons of mass destruction, whether chemical or nuclear.

It is difficult for anyone to tell you what is going to happen. [Middle East] is an area where everything is on the brink of explosion.

We're talking about the responsibility, my responsibility according to the Syrian constitution that said we have to defend ourselves.