Bashar

19 November 2015

Damascus, SANA – President al-Assad to the Italian TV Channel RAI UNO: ISIS has no incubator in Syria…Terrorists are main obstacle blocking political progress. These are some of the themes of President Bashar al-Assad’s interview to the Italian state television channel RAI UNO. The following is the full text:

Question 1: Mr. President, thanks for the opportunity of talking to you. Let’s start from Paris. How did you react to the news coming from Paris?

President al-Assad: We can start by saying it’s a horrible crime, and at the same time it’s a sad event when you hear about innocents being killed without any reason and for nothing, and we understand in Syria the meaning of losing a dear member of the family or a dear friend, or anyone you know, in such a horrible crime. We’ve been suffering from that for the past five years. We feel for the French as we feel for the Lebanese a few days before that, and for the Russians regarding the airplane that’s been shot down over Sinai, and for the Yemenis maybe, but does the world, especially the West, feel for those people, or only for the French? Do they feel for the Syrians that have been suffering for five years from the same kind of terrorism? We cannot politicize feeling, feeling is not about the nationality, it’s about human beings in general.

Question 2: There’s Daesh behind that. But from here, from this point of view, from here from Damascus, how strong is Daesh? How do you think we can fight terrorists on the ground?

President al-Assad: ISIS has no incubator in Syria. If you want to talk about the strength of Daesh, the first thing you have to ask is how much of an incubator, of a real incubator, of a natural incubator, you have in a certain society. As of now, I can tell you Daesh doesn’t have a natural incubator, a social incubator, within Syria. That is something very good and very reassuring, but at the same time, if it becomes chronic, this kind of ideology can change the society.

Question 3: Yes, but some of the terrorists were trained here, in Syria, just a few kilometers from here. What does it mean?

President al-Assad: That happens with the support of the Turks and the Saudis and Qataris and of course the Western policy that supported the terrorists in different ways since the beginning of the crisis, of course, but that’s not the issue. First of all, if you don’t have the incubator, you shouldn’t worry, but second, they can be strong as long as they have strong support from different states, whether Middle Eastern states or Western states.

Question 4: Mr. President, there are speculations in the West that say that you were one of those who supported Daesh in the beginning of the crisis, for the purpose of dividing the opposition, for the purpose of dividing the rebels. How do you react?

President al-Assad: Al Qaeda was created by the Americans. Actually, according to what some American officials have said, including Hillary Clinton, Al Qaeda was created by the Americans with the help of Saudi Wahabite money and ideology, and of course, many other officials have said the same in the United States. And as for ISIS and al-Nusra, they are offshoots of Al Qaeda. Regarding ISIS, it started in Iraq, it was established in Iraq in 2006, and the leader was al-Zarqawi who was killed by the American forces then, so it was established under the American supervision in Iraq. The leader of ISIS today, who is called Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was in the American prisons, and he was put in a New York prison, and he was released by them. So, it didn’t come from Syria, it didn’t start in Syria, it started in Iraq, and it started before that in Afghanistan according to what they said, and Tony Blair recently said that yes, the Iraqi war helped create ISIS. So, their confession is the most important evidence regarding your question.

Question 5: Mr. President, watching the map of Syria, it seems that the Syrian-Iraqi border doesn’t exist any more. Which part of Syria do you really control at the moment?

President al-Assad: If you’re talking geographically, it’s changing every day, but the most important thing is how much of the population are under the government’s control. Actually, most of the area that’s controlled by the terrorists has been either evacuated by the terrorists, or because the people fled to the government-controlled area. There’s also the question of how much of the Syrian population still supports the government. Militarily, you can win ground, you can lose some area, but in any case the army cannot be on the scene everywhere in Syria. But looking to the map that you described, and those I see from time to time in the Western media, when they show you that the government controls 50% or less of their ground, remember that actually 50 or 60% of Syria is empty ground, where you don’t have anyone in control, so they put it under the control of the terrorists, while it’s actually , totally empty.

Question 6: Yes, I was also asking about the borders between Syria and Iraq.

President al-Assad: Exactly. When you leave Damascus and go east towards Iraq, it’s empty space, it’s an empty area, so you cannot talk about who controls it. But regarding the borders, this issue is only related to the terrorists; it’s related to the governments that supported the terrorists like the Turkish government first of all, and the Jordanian government. Both governments support terrorists, and that’s why you have porous borders, because when you want to have controlled borders, they needs to be controlled from both sides, not from one side only.

Question 7: Last weekend there were two very important meetings talking about the situation in Syria, in Vienna and in Antalya. Most countries are talking about the transition in Syria. There are different positions, but basically most of the countries agree with the idea of elections in 18 months. But they also say that in the meantime, basically, you should leave. What’s your position about that?

President al-Assad: The main part of the Vienna statement is that everything regarding the political process is about what the Syrians are going to agree upon.

No, in the statement there is nothing regarding the president. The main part of the Vienna negotiation is that everything that is going to happen regarding the political process will be determined by what the Syrians agree upon, so the most important part of that phrase is about the constitution, and the president, any president, should come to his position and leave that position according to constitutional procedures, not according to the opinion of any Western power or country. So, once we have consensus among the Syrians, we can disregard the rest of Vienna. Regarding the schedule, that depends on the agreement that we can reach as Syrians. If we don’t reach it in 18 months, so what? You have many things that I think are trivial now, or let’s say, not essential. The most important part is that we’re going to sit with each other then we’re going to put together our schedule and our plan as Syrians.

Question 8: I understand, but do you consider it an option, the possibility to leave power? I mean, do you imagine an electoral process without you?

President al-Assad: It depends. What do you mean by electoral? Do you mean to the parliament or to the presidency?

Question 9: To the parliament.

President al-Assad: To the parliament, of course, there’s going to be a parliamentary election because the parliamentary elections are going to show which of the political groupings in Syria has real weight among the Syrian people, which one has real grassroots strength. Now, anyone can say “I represent the opposition.” What does it mean, how do you translate it? Through the elections, and the seats that can be won in the parliament we can see how much weight some political force can have in the coming government, for example. Of course, that will be after having a new constitution. I’m just putting forth a proposal, for example, now, I’m not describing anything that we have agreed upon yet.

Question 10: And about the presidential [elections]?

President al-Assad: The presidential… if the Syrians, in their dialogue, wanted to have presidential elections, there’s nothing called a red line, for example, regarding this. But it’s not my decision. It should be about what the consensus is among the Syrians.

Question 11: But, there could be someone else that you trust, participating in the process of elections instead of you.

President al-Assad: Someone I trust? What do you mean by someone I trust?

Question 12: I mean someone else you trust to do this job.

President al-Assad: [laughs] Yes, but you make it sound like you are talking about taking my private property, so I can go and bring someone to put in my place. It’s not private property; it’s a national issue. A national issue, and only the Syrians can choose someone they trust. It doesn’t matter if I trust someone or not. Whomever the Syrians trust will be in that position. Terrorists are main the obstacle to any real political progress

Question 13: Let me see if I understood well. What is the real timetable, which is exactly your timetable, I mean the realistic timetable to get out of this crisis?

President al-Assad: The timetable, if you want to talk about scheduling, starts after we begin defeating terrorism. Before that, there will be no point in deciding any timetables, because you cannot achieve anything politically while you have the terrorists taking over many areas in Syria, and they’re going to be – they are already the main obstacle of any real political advancement. If we talk after that, one year and a half to two years is enough for any transition. It’s enough. I mean if you want to talk about first of all having a new constitution, then a referendum, and then parliamentarian elections, then any kind of other procedure, whether presidential or any other kind, doesn’t matter. It won’t take more than two years.

Question 14: There’s something else about the opposition; in these years, you said that you couldn’t consider those who are fighting as an opposition. Did you change your mind?

President al-Assad: We can apply that to your country; you don’t accept people that are carrying machine guns as an opposition in your country. That’s the case in every other country. Whoever carries a machine gun and terrorizes people and destroys private or public properties or kills innocents or anyone else is a terrorist, he’s not the opposition. Opposition is a political term. Opposition could be defined not through your own opinion; it could be defined only through the elections, through the ballot box.

Question 15: So what do you consider to be the opposition at the moment? The political opposition?

President al-Assad: I mean, ask the Syrians whom they consider opposition. If they elect them, they are the real opposition. So that’s why I said we can define, we can give definition to this after the elections. But if you want to talk about my own opinion, you can be opposition when you have Syrian grassroots, when you belong only to your country. You cannot be in the opposition while you are formed as a person or as an entity in the foreign ministry of another country or in the intelligence building of other countries. You cannot be a puppet, you cannot be a surrogate mercenary; you can only be a real Syrian. Every Syrian citizen who leaves this country is a loss to Syria.

Question 16: Now in Europe, in Italy, we see so many Syrians coming, Syrian refugees, they are refugees. What would you like to tell these fleeing people, to your escaping people?

President al-Assad: Of course I would say everyone who leaves this country is a loss to Syria. That’s for sure, and we feel sad, we feel the suffering, because every refugee in Syria has a long story of suffering within Syria, and that’s what we should deal with by asking the question “why did they leave?” For many reasons. The first one is the direct threat by terrorists. The second one is the influence of terrorists in destroying much of the infrastructure and interfering with the livelihood of those people. But the third reason, which is as important as the influence of terrorists, is the Western embargo on Syria. If you ask many Syrian refugees “Do you want to go back to Syria?” they will tell you they want to go back right away, but how can they go back to Syria while the basics of their life, their livelihood, has been affected dramatically, so they cannot stay in Syria. The embargo influence of the West and the terrorist influence has put those people between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Question 17: But don’t you feel in any way responsible for what has happened to your people?

President al-Assad: You mean that I’m supposed to be responsible?

Question 18: Yes.

President al-Assad: The only thing that we have done since the beginning of the crisis is fight terrorism and support dialogue. What else can we do? Does anyone oppose dialogue? Does anyone oppose fighting terrorism? If you want to talk about the details, and about propaganda in the West, we shouldn’t waste our time. It’s just propaganda, because the problem from the very beginning with the West is that they don’t want me to be president, and they want this government to fail and collapse, so they can change it. Everybody knows that. The whole Western game is regime change, regardless of the meaning of regime; we don’t have a regime, we have a state, but I’m talking about their concept and their principle. So, you can blame whomever you want, but the main blame is on the West who supported those terrorists who created ISIS in Syria and created al-Nusra because of the umbrella that they gave to those terrorist organizations.

Question 19: So no responsibility?

President al-Assad: Of course, as a Syrian, no, I’m not saying that we don’t do mistakes. You have mistakes on the tactical level that you make every day in your work, and you have strategies. As for strategies, we have adopted these two approaches, but on the tactical level, you do many mistakes every day. Every Syrian is responsible for what happened. We are responsible as Syrians, when we allow these terrorists to come to Syria, because of some Syrians who have the same mentality, and some Syrians who accepted the status of puppets to the Gulf states and to the West. Of course we’re taking responsibility, while if you want to talk about my responsibility, it’s something you can talk about in detail. I mean it’s difficult to judge now.

Question 20: I would like to ask you: how was your trip to Moscow?

President al-Assad: It was a trip to discuss the military situation, because it happened nearly two weeks after the Russians started the airstrikes, and to discuss the political process, because it was, again, a few days before Vienna. It was very fruitful, because the Russians understand this region very well, because they have historical relations, they have embassies, they have all kinds of necessary relations and the means to play a role. So, I can describe it as a fruitful visit.

Question 21: From Rome, from the Vatican, the Pope said that killing in the name of God is a blasphemy. And the question, first of all, is this war really a war of religion?

President al-Assad: No, actually, no. It’s not a religious war. It’s between people who deviated from real religion, mainly of course Islam, towards extremism, which we don’t consider as part of our religion. It’s a war between the real Muslims and the extremists. This is the core of the war today. Of course, they give it different titles; war against Christians, war among other sects. These are only headlines the extremists use to promote their war, but the real issue is the war between them and the rest of the Muslims, the majority who are mainly moderate.

Question 22: Even if they kill in the name of God? If they kill while saying Allah Akbar?

President al-Assad: Exactly, that’s how they can promote their war. That’s why they use these holy words or phrases, in order to convince the other simple people in this region that they are fighting for Allah, for God, which is not true. And some of them use these words fully knowing that they are not true, and some of them are ignorant and they believe that this is a war for God. That’s the deviation, that’s why I said it’s a deviation; they are people who deviated from real Islam deliberately or by mistake.

Question 23: And what about the future of Christian people in Syria, in your country?

President al-Assad: Actually, when it comes to this region, I think most Italians and many others in the West know that this is a moderate region, a moderate society, especially Syria, whether politically or socially and culturally, and the main reason why we have this moderation is because we have such broad diversity in sects and ethnicities. But one of the most important factors is the Christian factor in the history of Syria, especially after Islam came to this region centuries ago. So, without the Christians, this region will move more toward extremism. So their future is important, but you cannot separate it from the future of all Syrians, these two cannot be separated. I mean, if you have a good future for the Syrians, the future of every component of our society will be good, and vice versa

Question 24: Okay, so there’s a future for them here, because there seems in this war to be targeting of Christian people.

President al-Assad: Not really, actually the number of Muslims that have been killed in Syria as much, much more than the Christians, so you cannot say there’s a target. Again, attacks on Christians are only used by the extremists in order to promote their war, to be able to claim that that they are waging war against infidels in the name of God and so on. But in reality this is false.

Question 25: Mr. President, before the end of this interview, let me ask you one more question. How do you see your future? Which do you consider more important: the future of Syria, or your own grip on power?