Exclusive | Terrorism has been used for political reasons in both India and Syria: Bashar al-Assad

Thank you for coming to Syria; and you come at a time when the situation has improved dramatically, let's say, because the terrorist groups, mainly ISIS and al-Nusra and like-minded groups,

who are Wahhabi terrorist extremist groups, are retreating, or let's say the area under their control has been shrinking. So, the situation on the ground, from a military point of view, is

much better than before. But this is not the whole picture; it's not only about military conflict, it's about different things, about the ideology that they try to spread in our region,

which is the most dangerous challenge that we may face in the near and long term.

Second, it's about the support that those terrorist groups have been gaining from regional countries like Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, and European and Western countries like the United

States, France, and UK, mainly, which mark a new era in the world where you can use terrorism, any kind of terrorism, to implement a political agenda. This is something more dangerous than

any other danger that we may face in our modern world.

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 that could produce

something 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, 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.

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 who implement and dictate on the president. The proof of what I'm saying is that Trump, after he

became president, swallowed most of the promises he was boasting during his campaign. He made a 180-degree turn on nearly every promise. 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 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.

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. So, why use it when the army was advancing and the terrorists were retreating?

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? 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 of the American attacks on our airbase. And they wanted to demonise again, to

re-demonise the Syrian state and the Syrian President.

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.

We respect a lot the Indian position, because first of all it’s based on the international law, it's based on the charter of the United Nations, it's based on the morals of the world, of the

human civilisations first, and Indian civilisation second, the Indian people’s morals. This is very important, that’s the difference between state and regime: the state bases everything,

all its vision, all its policy on the ethics of its own people. So, we respect the Indian position in that regard.

Second, as you just mentioned a very important word, it was "independent." In spite of all the Western pressure on every country, including India, to join the embargo against the Syrian

people, India wouldn't cease its relation with Syria, and some of the investments are still going on in Syria with Indian participation in different sectors because of that independent

position.

The ideology that we've been facing is the same one, and the most important thing is that the terrorism has been used in India for political reasons, and Syria is the same. To support

terrorist organisations for political agenda, this is something very dangerous. It's beyond India and 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 UK, it tells you that terrorism has no borders, so what we have to do is not only to learn from our experience. We need to have an

international coalition against terrorism, to learn from each other, and to support each other. Cooperation is not only intelligence, it's about the ideology, it's about the politics that's

been supporting these terrorists.

To be precise, the word "deflect" is not precise for one reason: because when the Saud family created this kingdom, they created it in cooperation and in coordination with the Wahhabi

institution, so it's one institution. The Wahhabi institution, the extremists in Saudi Arabia defend the state because it's their own state, it's one. You cannot talk about terrorism and

Saud family as two entities. That's why they didn't ‘deflect’, they exported terrorism or the Wahhabi ideology. Nearly every madrasa in Asia, in Europe, every mosque, has been supported

financially and ideologically through every means by the Wahhabi institution. That's why I wouldn't say, no, they didn't deflect, they exported.

Definitely, definitely. First of all, if you want to talk about the political part, the most important factor for any player to play any role in such a complicated conflict is to have

credibility, and India through the history has always been credible. Through the different parties that took power in India, we never noted that there's any fluctuation in their policy

because it's based on morals and ethics as I said. So, this credibility is a very important factor for India to play a role, not necessarily within Syria, because the Syrian conflict is not

only Syrian; the main factors are regional and international, and the most important part of this that how can we protect international law. So India as a main country on the political arena

today has to do its utmost in order to protect the international law and the Charter of the United Nations through its relations. India has relations with every country in this world. So,

with their effort, the effort of their officials and the government, they can help in that regard.

If you want to talk about the reconstruction, as you know when you have war in any country that destroys much of the infrastructure, the most profitable sector would be the rebuilding, and

India is welcome to play an economic role in the reconstruction of Syria, something that we already started. We started this project in Damascus, and now we are expanding that project in

most of the cities in Syria, of course after the liberation from ISIS and al-Nusra and those terrorist groups. Of course we welcome any Indian company.

Of course, definitely, definitely, and the scope of the relation between Syria and India, I would describe it as ample scope, and that was my plan in 2008, and this relation was moving

upward. Because of the war, things have changed in a different way, but of course after this war India will be one of the first countries to visit, not because of the scope of the relation,

but actually because we have to be faithful or loyal to every country that was objective and moral in its position toward the war in Syria.

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.

Everybody would think about the security part of your question. Actually, no, we live in the middle of the city, or the middle of Damascus, my house is not far from here. We've been, like

every Syrian, been subjected to every kind of threat, including mortars and other means, so this is not a big issue for us as family. For us as a Syrian family, the thing that affected us

more than any other thing is the feeling, the pain, the suffering because of the blood-shedding that affected every family, nearly every family in Syria. This is the most important thing.

Apart from that is the kind of dialogue that you've had in your family with the children that they've grown up on a very strange scene, which is not the natural one, not the normal one, not

the Syria that we used to see before the war. So the question would be: why, what's happening, why we don't have...

I tell the truth. You have to be very transparent and very realistic, because in spite of all the bad aspects of the war - as you say every cloud has a silver lining - it's a lesson, it's a

lesson they should learn, because maybe our generation and the previous generation didn't learn from the mistakes, that's why you have the war. They should learn from that lesson in order to

protect our country in the future when they are grown up.

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 analyze the situation in Syria. So, actually, it's not a secret; it's something

they didn't see, but it's not a secret.

If you talk about daily things, you always have different vantage points to look at things, so you can say I would have done it in a different way, but if you want to talk about the main

strategy, headlines, like fighting terrorism, of course we're going to fight terrorism. This is constitution, this is the law, and this is our duty as government to defend the people. So, we

wouldn't discuss this. To have dialogue with everyone, including the terrorists, of course, it's a strategy that we think that has produced positive effects. How can we change or fine-tune

this strategy, this is another issue. You can fine-tune it, but as a headline, of course, I would say that was correct. To open up even with another country like the Western countries that

allegedly wanted to help Syria, it was correct, but it didn't produce. I think the only mistake that we made is when we believed that the West has values; this is one of the mistakes that we

committed in the past, and we thought some countries like Saudi Arabia could have values, but the only value that they have is the Wahhabi value.

The West, you mean, mainly the Western? No, they cannot, because if they do any U-turn or any turn, their public opinion will tell them "you were lying, you've been talking about this bad

person and this bad government and the killing for seven years, now you want to tell us the truth?" They cannot tell the truth. So, they have to continue till the end with their lies, till

these lies will be debunked by their public opinion. They cannot.

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.

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.

No, because it's not the first time for us to face the terrorism; we've been facing terrorism before Hafez al-Assad, before President al-Assad, in the 50s when the Muslim Brotherhood came to

Syria, since that time, the conflicts in Syria started in a similar way, but on a different scale. So, the principle of the conflict is the same; terrorism is terrorism, extremism is

extremism, no matter what names you use for the organizations. The methodology of all those terrorists are the same, that's what I want to say. So, President Hafez al-Assad fought those

terrorists in the 70s and the 80s and we have to fight them today, and if we face them 50 years later with another generation, we have to fight them. So, I think this is one response and one

methodology. Again, it's about the details. The details could be different not between two eras and two presidents, it could be different from day to day, because when you have such a war,

you can have things that have been fluctuating or changing in a very fast pace.

But actually, I was an ophthalmologist in Syria before I was in London. I worked three years and a half in Syria, and then I went to London for about two years. So, if you want to talk about

missing the job, of course, it's something you always feel passionate toward, you don't have to say that you miss it, that you don't like this job. Today, you are on a bigger scale when you

help the Syrian people, this is something you should love. If you don't love it, if you don't have this passion toward it, you cannot succeed. Of course, I have a very strong passion for

this, but the scientific field in general is my second passion since I was young, not only ophthalmology, all the science sectors in general. So, you always feel this passion and you feel

that you want to know what's the update, what are the new trends in that field.

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, supported those extremists in a very, how to say, massive way, I'm sure the worst is behind us.

I think during the last few decades, mainly after Bush came to power in the United States, the West tried to promote its society, its political system, its behavior as the minaret that the

world should follow socially and politically and in every other aspect. I think India, the Indian people are the one that could be that minaret because of the diversity that you have,

because of the civilization that's deeply rooted in the history, and because of the morals that you base your society and your politics on, because of the real democracy that India showed to

the world, because of many things, I think India is the one who are ready to lead that direction if they want to set an example for any other country to follow. This is my most important

message, because we know what's the meaning of diversity because we are a diverse country but on a smaller scale.

Watch the interview here:

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