 |
| RT's Sophie Shevardnadze interviewing Assad in Damasccus |
In an exclusive
interview with RT (Russia Today), Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said
that Syria is not going through a civil war, but rather a different kind of war
– terrorism through proxies – involving either Syrians or foreign fighters from
abroad.
Assad told RT’s Sophie
Shevardnadze the West creates enemy scapegoats – from communism to Islam to
Saddam Hussein. He accused Western countries of aiming to create a new enemy
embodied by him.
And while western media
outlets report the crisis is solely between Assad and a Syrian opposition, the
leader says that simply isn’t the case.
But in the case of a
foreign invasion, Assad warned, the price would be more than the whole world
could afford.
The Qs & As:
RT: President
Bashar al-Assad of Syria, thank very much for talking to us today.
Assad:
You are most welcome in Damascus.
There are many people
who were convinced a year ago that you would not make it this far. Here again
you are sitting in a newly renovated presidential palace and recording this
interview. Who exactly is your enemy at this point?
My enemy is terrorism
and instability in Syria. This is our enemy in Syria. It is not about the
people, it is not about persons. The whole issue is not about me staying or
leaving. It is about the country being safe or not. So, this is the enemy we
have been fighting as Syria.
I have been here for
the last two days and I had the chance to talk to a couple of people in
Damascus. Some of them say that whether you stay or go at this point does not
really matter anymore. What do you say about this?
I think for the
president to stay or leave is a popular issue. It is related to the opinion of
some people and the only way can be done through the ballot boxes. So, it is
not about what we hear. It is about what we can get through that box and that
box will tell any president to stay or leave very simply.
I think what they meant
was that at this point you are not the target anymore; Syria is the target.
I was not the target; I
was not the problem anyway. The West creates enemies; in the past it was the
communism then it became Islam, and then it became Saddam Hussein for a
different reason. Now, they want to create a new enemy represented by Bashar.
That's why they say that the problem is the president, so he has to leave. That
is why we have to focus of the real problem, not to waste our time listening to
what they say.
Do you personally still
believe that you are the only man who can hold Syria together and the only man
who can put an end to what the world calls a ‘civil war’?
We have to look at it
from two aspects. The first aspect is the constitution and I have my authority
under the constitution. According to this authority and the constitution, I
have to be able to solve the problem. But if we mean you do not have any other
Syrian who can be a president, no -- any Syrian could be a president. We have
many Syrians who are eligible to be in that position. You cannot always link
the whole country only to one person.
But you are fighting
for your country. Do you believe you are the man who can put an end to the
conflict and restore peace?
I have to be the man
who can do that and I hope so, but it is not about the power of the president;
it is about the whole society. We have to be precise about this. The president
cannot do anything without the institutions and without the support of the people.
So, the fight now is not a president’s fight; it is Syrians’ fight. Every Syrian
is involved in defending his country now.
It is and a lot of
civilians are dying as well in the fighting. So, if you were to win this war,
how would you reconcile with your people after everything that has happened?
Let’s be precise once
again. The problem is not between the people and me; I do not have a problem
with the people because the United States is against me and the West is against
me and many other Arab countries, including Turkey, which is not Arab of
course, are against me. If the Syrian people are against me, how can I be here?
They are not against
you?
If the whole world, or
let us say a big part of the world, including your people, are against you, are
you a superman? You are just a human being. So, this is not logical. It is not
about reconciling with the people and it is not about reconciliation between
the Syrians and the Syrians; we do not have a civil war. It is about terrorism
and the support coming from abroad to terrorists to destabilize Syria. This is
our war.
Do you still not believe
it is a civil war because I know there are a lot who think that there are
terrorist acts which everyone believes take place in Syria, and there are also
a lot of sectarian-based conflicts. For example, we all heard about the mother
who has two sons; one son is fighting for the government forces and the other
son is fighting for the rebel forces, how is this not a civil war?
You have divisions, but
division does not mean civil war. It is completely different. Civil wars should
be based on ethnic problems or sectarian problems. Sometimes you may have
ethnic or sectarian tensions but this do not make them (a) problem. So, if you
have division in the same family or in a bigger tribe or whatever or in the
same city, it does not mean a civil war. This is completely different and that
is normal. We should expect that.
When I asked about
reconciling with your people, this is what I meant: I heard you say on many
different occasions that the only thing you care about is what the Syrian
people think of you and what Syrian people feel towards you and whether you
should be a president or not. Are you not afraid that there has been so much
damage done, for whatever reason, that at the end of the day Syrians won’t care
about the truth; they will just blame you for the carnage that they have
suffered?
This is a hypothetical
question because what the people think is the right thing, and regarding what
they think, we have to ask them. But I don’t have this information right now.
So, I am not afraid about what some people think; I am afraid about my country.
We have to be focused on that.
For years there have
been so many stories about the almighty Syrian army, important and strong
Syrian secret services, but then we see that, you know, the government forces
are not able to crush the enemy like people expected it would, and we see
terrorist attacks take place in the middle of Damascus almost every day. Were
those myths about the Syrian army and about the strong Syrian secret services?
Usually, in normal
circumstances when you have the army and the secret services and the
intelligence, we focus on the external enemy even if we have an internal enemy,
like terrorism, because the society is helping us at least not to provide
terrorist’s incubator. Now in this case, it is a new kind of war -- terrorism
through proxies, either Syrians living in Syria or foreign fighters coming from
abroad. So, it is a new style of war, this is first and you have to adapt to
this style and it takes time, it is not easy. And to say this is as easy as the
normal or, let us say, the traditional or regular war, no, it is much more
difficult. Second, the support that has been offered to those terrorists in
every aspect, including armaments, money and political aspect is unprecedented.
So, you have to expect that it is going to be a tough war and a difficult war.
You do not expect a small country like Syria to defeat all those countries that
have been fighting us through proxies just in days or weeks.
Yes, but when you look
at it, I mean on one hand, you have one leader with an army, and he orders this
army go straight, go left, go right and the army obeys. On the other hand, you
have fractions of terrorists who are not unified and have no one unified
strategy to fight you. So, how does that really happen when it comes to
fighting each other?
This is not the
problem. The problem is that those terrorists are fighting from within the
cities, and in the cities you have civilians. When you fight this kind of
terrorists, you have to be aware that you should do the minimum damage to the
infrastructure and minimum damage to the civilians because you have civilians
and you have to fight, you cannot leave terrorists just killing and destroying.
So, this is the difficulty in this kind of war.
You know that the
infrastructure and economy are suffering; it is almost as if Syria is going to
fall into decay very soon and the time is against you. In your opinion, how
much time do you need to crush the enemy?
You cannot answer this
question because no one (has) the answer about when to end the war unless we
have the answer to when they are going to stop smuggling foreign fighters from
different parts of the world, especially the Middle East and the Islamic world,
and when they are going to stop sending armaments to those terrorists. If they
stop, this is when I can answer you; I can tell that in weeks we can finish
everything. This is not a big problem. But as long as you have continuous
supply (of) terrorists, armaments, logistics and everything else, it is going
to be a long-term war.
Also, when you think
about it, you have 4,000 km of loosely controlled borders, so you have your
enemy that can at any time cross over into Jordan or Turkey to be rearmed, get
medical care and come back to fight you!
No country in the world
can seal the border. Sometime they use this word which is not correct, even the
United Stated cannot seal its border with Mexico for example. The same can be
applied to Russia, which is a big country. So, no country can seal the border.
You can only have a better situation on the border when you have good relations
with your neighbor and this is something we do not have at least with Turkey
now. Turkey supports more than any other country the smuggling of terrorists
and armaments.
Can I say to you
something? I have been in Turkey recently and people there are actually very
worried that a war will happen between Syria and Turkey. Do you think a war
with Turkey is a realistic scenario?
Rationally, no I do not
think so – for two reasons. The war needs public support and the majority of
the Turkish people do not need this war. So, I do not think any rational
official would think of going against the will of the public in his country and
the same for the Syrian people. So, the conflict or difference is not between the
Turkish people and the Syrian people; it is about the government and officials,
it is between our officials and their officials because of their politics. So,
I do not see any war between Syria and Turkey on the horizon.
When was the last time
you spoke to Erdogan and how did the talk end?
May 2011, after he won
the election.
So, you just
congratulated him, and it was the last time
Yes and it was the last
time.
Who is shelling Turkey?
Is it the government forces or the rebels?
In order to find the
answer, you need a joint committee between the two armies in order to know who
shells who, because on the borders you have a lot of terrorists who have
mortars; so, they can do the same. You have to go and investigate the bomb in
that place itself and that did not happen. We asked the Turkish government to
have this committee but they refused; so, you cannot have the answer. But when
you have these terrorists on your borders, you do not exclude them from doing
so because the Syrian army does not have any order to shell the Turkish land
because we do not find any interest in this, and we do not have any enmity with
the Turkish people. We consider them as brothers, so why do it; unless that
happened by mistake, then it needs investigation.
Do you accept that it
may be mistakenly from the government forces?
That could happen. This
is a possibility and in every war you have mistakes. You know in Afghanistan,
they always talk about friendly fire if you kill your soldier; this means that
it could happen in every war, but we cannot say yes.
Why has Turkey, which
you call a friendly nation, become a foothold for the opposition?
Not Turkey, but only
Erdogan’s government in order to be precise. Turkish people need good relations
with the Syrian people. Erdogan thinks that if the Muslim Brotherhood takes
over in the region, and especially in Syria, he can guarantee his political
future; this is one reason. The other reason, he personally thinks that he is
the new sultan of the Ottoman and he can control the region as it was during
the Ottoman Empire under a new umbrella. In his heart he thinks he is a caliph.
These are the main two reasons for him to shift his policy from zero problems
to zero friends.
But it is not just the
West that opposes you at this point; there are so many enemies in the Arab
world and that is to say like two years ago when someone heard you name in the
Arab world they would straighten their ties, and now in the first occasion they
betrayed you, why do you have so many enemies in the Arab world?
They are not enemies.
The majority of Arab governments support Syria in their heart but they do not
dare to say that explicitly.
Why not?
(Because they are)
under pressure by the West (if not) the petrodollars in the Arab world.
Who supports you from
the Arab world?
Many countries support
Syria (in) their hearts but they do not dare to say that explicitly. First of
all, Iraq which played a very active role in supporting Syria during the crisis
because it is a neighboring country and they understand and recognize that if
you have a war inside Syria you will have war in the neighboring countries,
including Iraq. I think there are other countries that have a good position
like Algeria, and Oman mainly; and there are other countries -- I would not count all of them now but I
would say they have a positive position without taking actions.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar,
why are they so adamant about you resigning and how would an unstable Middle
East fit their agenda?
Let’s be frank, I
cannot answer on their behalf. They have to answer this question but I could
say that the problem between Syria and many countries, whether in the Arab
world or in the region or in the West, is that we kept saying no when we think
that we have to say no, that is the problem. And some countries believe they
can control Syria through orders, through money or petrodollars and this is
impossible in Syria, this is the problem. May be they want to play a role. We
do not have a problem, they can play a role whether they deserve this or not,
they can play a role but not to play a role at the expense of our interests.
Is it about controlling
Syria or about exporting their vision of Islam to Syria?
You cannot put it as a
government policy sometimes. Sometimes you have institutions in a certain
country, sometime you have persons who try to promote this but they do not
announce it as an official policy. So, they did not ask us to promote their
let’s say extremist attitude of their institutions but that happened in reality
whether through indirect support of their government or through the foundation
from institutions and personnel. So, this is part of the problem, but when I
want to talk as a government, I have to talk about the announced policy. The
announced policy is like any other policy; it is about the interest, it is
about playing a role, but we cannot ignore what you mentioned.
Iran, which is a very
close ally, also is exposed to economic sanctions, also facing a threat of
military invasion. If you were faced with an option to cut ties with Iran in exchange
for peace in your country, would you go for it?
We do not have
contradicting options in this regard because we had good relations with Iran
since 1979 till today, and it is getting better every day, but at the same time
we are moving towards peace. We had a peace process and we had peace
negotiations. Iran was not a factor against peace. So, this is misinformation
they try to promote in the West that if we need peace, we do not have to have
good relations with Iran. There is no (link); it is two completely different
subjects. Iran supported Syria, supported our cause, the cause of the occupied
land and we have to support them in their cause. This is very simple. Iran is a
very important country in the region. If we are looking for stability, we need
good relations with Iran. You cannot talk about stability while you have bad
relations with Iran, Turkey and your neighbors and so on. This is it.
Do you have any
information that the Western intelligence is financing rebel fighters here in
Syria?
No, so far what we know
is that they are offering the know-how support for the terrorists through
Turkey and sometimes through Lebanon mainly. But there is other intelligence,
not the Western, but the regional intelligence, which is very active and more
active than the Western one under the supervision of the Western intelligence.
What is the role of al-Qaeda
in Syria at this point? Are they controlling any of the rebel coalition forces?
No, I do not think they
are looking to control; they are looking to create their own kingdoms or
emirates in their language, but they mainly try now to scare the people through
explosions, assassinations, suicide bombers and things like this to push the
people towards desperation and to accept them as reality. So, they go step by step
but their final aim is to have this, let’s say, Islamic Emirate in Syria where
they can promote their own ideology in the rest of the world.
From those who are
fighting you and those who are against you, who would you talk to?
We talk to anyone who
has genuine will to help Syria, but we do not waste our time with anyone who
wants to use our crisis for his own personal interests.
There has been many
times… not you but the government forces have been accused many times of war
crimes against your own civilians, do you accept that the government forces
have committed war crimes against their own civilians?
We are fighting
terrorism. We are implementing our constitution by protecting the Syrian
people. Let’s go back to what happened in Russia more than a decade ago when
you faced terrorism in Chechnya and other places; they attacked people in
theaters and schools and so on, and the army in Russia protected the people,
would you call it war crimes? No, you would not. Two days ago, Amnesty
International recognized the crimes that were committed a few days ago by the
armed groups when they captured soldiers and executed them. Also Human Rights
Watch recognized this. Human Rights Watch recognized more than once the crimes
of those terrorist groups and a few days ago it described these crimes as war
crimes, this is the first point. The second point, if you have an army that
committed a crime against its own people, this is devoid of logic because the
Syrian Army is made up of Syrian people. If you want to commit a crime against
your people, then the army will divide, and will disintegrate. So, you cannot
have a strong army while you are killing your people. Third, the army cannot
withstand for 20 months in these difficult circumstances without having the
embrace of the public in Syria. So, how could you have this embracement while
you are killing your people? This is a contradiction. So, this is the answer.
When was the last time
you spoke to a Western leader?
It was before the
crisis.
Was there any time at
which they try to give you conditions that if you left the post of presidency
then there will be peace in Syria or no?
No, they did not propose it directly, no, but whether they propose that
directly or indirectly, it is a matter of sovereignty; only the Syrian people
will talk about this. Whoever talks about this in the media or in a statement
directly or indirectly has no meaning and has no weight in Syria.
Do you even have a
choice because from what it seems from the outside that would not have anywhere
to go. Where would you go if you want to leave?
To Syria. I would go
from Syria to Syria. This is the only place where we can live. I am not a
puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country. I
am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.
Do you think that at
this point there is any chance for diplomacy or talks or only the army can get
it done?
I always believe in
diplomacy and I always believe in dialogue even with those who do not
understand or believe in it. We have to keep trying. I think that we will
always achieve a partial success. We have to look for this partial success
before we achieve the complete success. But we have to be realistic. You do not
think that only dialogue can make you achieve something because those people
who committed these acts they are of two kinds: one of them does not believe in
dialogue, especially the extremists, and you have the outlaws who have been
convicted by the court years ago before the crisis and their natural enemy is
the government because they are going to be detained if we have a normal
situation in Syria. The other part of them are the people who have been
supplied by the outside, and they can only be committed to the governments that
paid them the money and supplied them with the armament; they do not have a
choice because they do not own their own decision. So, you have to be
realistic. And you have the third part of the people whether militants or
politicians who can accept the dialogue. That’s why we have been in this
dialogue for months now even with militants and many of them gave up their
armaments and they went back to their normal life.
Do you think a foreign
invasion is imminent?
I think the price of
this invasion if it happened is going to be more than the whole world can
afford because if you have a problem in Syria, and we are the last stronghold
of secularism and stability in the region and coexistence, let’s say, it will
have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific
and you know the implication on the rest of the world. I do not think the West
is going in that direction, but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next.
Mr.
President, do you blame yourself for anything?
Normally you have to find mistakes that you do with every decision otherwise
you are not human.
What’s your biggest
mistake?
I do not remember now
to be frank. But I always, even before taking the decision, consider that part
of it will be wrong; but you cannot tell about your mistakes now. Sometimes,
especially during a crisis, you do not see what is right and what is wrong
until you overcome the situation that you are in. I would not be objective to
talk about mistakes now because we’re still in the middle of the crisis.
So, you do not have
regrets yet?
Not now. When
everything is clear, you can talk about your mistakes, and definitely you have
mistakes and that is normal.
If today was March 15,
2011 – that’s when the protest started to escalate and grow -- what would you
do differently?
I would do what I did
on March 15.
Exactly the same?
Exactly the same: ask different parties to have dialogue and stand against
terrorists because that is how it started. It did not start as marches; the
umbrella or cover was the marches, but within those marches you had militants
who started shooting civilians and the army at the same time. May be on the
tactical level, you could have done something different but as a president you
are not tactical, you always take the decision on a strategic level, which is
something different.
President Assad, how do
you see yourself in 10 years’ time?
I see myself through my
country; I cannot see myself but my country in 10 years’ time. This is where I
can see myself.
Do you see yourself in
Syria?
Definitely, I have to be
in Syria. It is not about the position. I do not see myself whether a president
or not. This is not my interest. I can see myself in this country as a safe
country, stable country and more prosperous country.
President Bashar
al-Assad of Syria, thank you for talking to RT.
Thank
you for coming to Syria, again.
