The first question that I ask : do I have public support or not. That is the first question that I asked as President. If I don't have the public support, whether there's the so-called "Arab spring" - it's not spring, anyway - but whether we have this or we don't, if you don't have public support, you have to quit, you have to leave. If you have public support, in any circumstances you have to stay. That's your mission, you have to help the people, you have to serve the people.

Bashar al-Assad

No government in the world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person.

Bashar al-Assad

crazy government people

The captain doesn't think about death, or life, he thinks about saving his ship.

Bashar al-Assad

ships saving thinking

Whenever you have a war, the civilians and the innocents will pay the price. That's in any war, any war is a bad war.

Bashar al-Assad

pay-the-price pay war

It's very simple ; once the Western countries stop supporting those terrorists and making pressure on their puppet countries and client states like Saudi Arabia and Turkey and others, you'll have no problem in Syria. It will be solved easily.

Bashar al-Assad

turkeys simple country

Foreigners cannot bring freedom, cannot bring democracy, because this is related to the culture, to the different factors that affect or influence that society. You cannot bring it, you cannot import it.

Bashar al-Assad

democracy different culture

The external support can never substitute internal support, the example that we have to look at very well is Egypt and Tunisia ; they have all the support from the West and from the Gulf and from most of the countries of the world. When they don't have support within their country, they couldn't continue more than - how many weeks ? - three weeks. So, the only reason we stand here for two years and a half is because we have internal support, public support.

Bashar al-Assad

countries-of-the-world egypt country

In Great Britain, an author published a book in which he claimed that Jesus Christ had children. Such statements don't trigger civil unrest and bloodshed in Europe. But write similar statements about Islam in Syria and you might see bloody uprisings.

Bashar al-Assad

book children jesus

[Chemical weapons] isn't about what the United States believe in, it's about the reality that we have, and this reality, we own it, we don't have to discuss it.

Bashar al-Assad

united-states believe reality

There is no such things as "Islamic terrorism," because terrorism differs from Islam. There's just terrorism, not Islamic terrorism. But the term "Islamic terrorism" has become widespread.

Bashar al-Assad

islamic terrorism term

The problem with every American candidate regarding the presidency, I am not talking only about this campaign or elections, but generally, that they say something during the campaign and they do the opposite after the campaign.

Bashar al-Assad

campaigns opposites talking

[The Jews] tried to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad.

Bashar al-Assad

betrayed principles jesus

The only one who can fight for these values like democracy and freedoms are the people of any country or any society, not the foreigners.

Bashar al-Assad

fighting country people

In any war, people will pay the price.

Bashar al-Assad

pay-the-price war people

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

Bashar al-Assad

democracy persons

We don't have a lot of expectations [for Donald J. Trump] because the American administration is not only about the President; it's about different powers within this administration, the different lobbies that they are going to influence any President.

Bashar al-Assad

administration president expectations

Sometimes you may kill tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands with very primitive armaments.

Bashar al-Assad

armament may sometimes

Circumstances don't matter, only my state of being matters. What state of being are you choosing?

Bashar al-Assad

states matter attitude

I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.

Bashar al-Assad

syria dies made

Opposition doesn't mean to take arms and kill people and destroy everything.

Bashar al-Assad

arms mean people

You can forge anything these days, and we're living in a fake news era.

Bashar al-Assad

eras news fake