Bashar Al-Assad Quotes

Israel has WMD, and it has to sign [chemical warfare agreement], and Israel is occupying our land, so that's we talked about the Middle East, not Syria, not Israel ; it should be comprehensive.

If the rebels or the terrorists in this region or any other group have [chemical warfare], this could happen, I don't know. I'm not a fortuneteller to tell you what's going to happen.

At the end, killing is killing. Massacring is massacring.

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.

[Hezbollah forces] cannot exist all over Syria anyway, for many reasons, but they exist on the borders.

Every friend of Syria is looking for peaceful solution, and we are convinced about that. We have this advice, and without this advice we are convinced about it.

From Russia for example, we have political support, which is different from the cooperation. We have cooperation for 60 years now, but now we have political support.

This is cooperation [with Hezbollah, Iran , from Russia], I don't know what you mean by support. We have cooperation with countries for decades. Why talk about this cooperation now ?

For the West, they wanted to undermine the Syrian positions. For the petrodollar countries like Saudi Arabia, they're thinking undermining Syria will undermine Iran on sectarian basis.

Nobody knows [who they are] because when [terrorists] are dead and they are killed, they don't have any ID.

You look at [terrorists] faces, they look foreigners, but where are they coming from ? How precise this estimate is difficult to tell, but definitely the majority are Al-Qaeda.

If the American administration want to support Al-Qaeda - go ahead. That's what we have to tell them, go ahead and support Al-Qaeda, but don't talk about rebels and free Syrian army.

It's not about me, again, this fight is not my fight, it's not the fight of the government ; it's the fight of the country, of the Syrian people.

Some of these agendas wanted me to quit, very simply, so they said "we have all the guarantees if you want to leave, and all the money and everything you want." Of course, you just ignore that.

We are worried that rebels are taking control in many countries, and look at the results now. Are you satisfied as an American ? What are the results ? Nothing. Very bad - nothing good.

We are the fault line; if you don't deal with this fault line, you're going to have an earthquake, that's what we always said.

[Peace in Syria] is [António Guterres] priority, and of course it's our priority, that's self-evident.

The criteria or the paradigm for us is not the West, not the Western paradigm, because the West has its own culture, we have our own culture, they have their own reality, we have our own reality.

António Guterres role as Secretary-General in bringing all powers together is very essential' and we hope he can succeed, it's not easy of course.

We have to wait and see when Donald J. Trump embarks his new mission, let's say, or position within this administration as President.

We are very cautious in judging [Donald Trump], especially as he wasn't in a political position before.

I never rejected any responsibility, but that depends on the decision.

[American's government] thinking they are the judge of the world; they're not.

You cannot import anything from outside your country regarding the future of your country.

I think the most important part of this now is, let's say the American people, but the polls show that the majority now don't want a war, anywhere, not only against Syria.

You cannot have partition only on political bases or geographic bases. It should be social first of all when the communities do not live with each other.

In the war, you lose areas, but you recapture another area. So, it is difficult to tell whether you are losing or gaining or it was a standstill. No-one has this answer.

The worst loss for any country is not the infrastructure or the buildings or the material loss; actually, it's the human resources loss.

I would only give a prize to whoever works for the peace in Syria, first of all by stopping the terrorists from flowing towards Syria, only.

If you want to kill the Syrian people, who's going to support us as a government, as officials? No one.

There's a difference between a mistake or even a crime that's been committed by an individual, and between a policy of crime that's been implemented or adopted by a government.

You can't say "the people of Aleppo" because the majority of the people of Aleppo are living in the area under the control of the government, so you cannot talk about the people of Aleppo.

If you want to be transparent with your people, do not do anything cosmetic, whether to deceive your people or to get some applaud from the West.

The first thing you have to learn is how to conduct dialogue and how to make it productive.

My primary goal is to create prosperity.

The place where the interests of all parties come together is the international community, along with its resolutions.

If you are going to be a mediator or arbitrator you have to be in the middle between the two sides; you cannot take sides only with one party.

Politics is about realities, not logic.

America must listen. It must listen to the interests of others. But the US government has no interest in similarities, no matter how obvious.

Whether you call it terrorism or resistance, and whether you like Hamas or not, it is a political entity that no one can ignore.

Personally, I do not support the concept of suicide bombings. This is not part of our [syrian] culture. But whether you condemn them or not, suicide bombings are a reality.

I am president, I don't own the country so they are not my forces.

We, in Syria, our point of view stems from our experience.

Armies are not only for offensives.