“You have different parties, different factions, you have different ideologies ; you have everything in Middle East region now.”

In the initiative that we issued at the beginning of year 2013 we said every party with no exceptions as long as they give up their armaments.

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.

“Winning” is a subjective word, but we are making advancement. This is the correct word, because winning for some people is when you finish completely.

If you ask Americans whether they’ve been successful at sealing the border with Mexico, they’ll tell you that it’s a very difficult proposition.

Worry does not mean fear, but readiness for the confrontation.

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.

Any external support, if you want to call it support, let’s use this world, is… how to say… it’s going to be additional, but it’s not the base to depend on more than the Syrian support.

I am not talking about the state or average or common people. I am talking about everybody; because when you close your mind as an official you cannot upgrade and vice versa.

Any cooperation that doesn’t go through the Syrian government is not legal. If it’s not legal, we cannot cooperate with, and we don’t recognize and we don’t accept.

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.

The armament of the government is legal armament. Any other armament is not legal.

It is natural that we should always expect an Israeli attack, even when it does not threaten.

At the end, I said [chemical weapons] is something not to be discussed with anyone.

Why should you use a term [rebels] in the United States and England and maybe other countries and use another term in Syria ? This is a double standard that we don’t accept.

If you want to talk about mistakes, every country has mistakes, every government has mistakes, every person has mistakes. When you have a war, you have more mistakes. That’s the natural thing.

We are fully free, not partially, fully free, in everything related to the future of Syria.

If you get a chance to go outside of the country, you start examining where you’re from and some of the thought processes.

Peace in the Middle East is of prime importance to the Philippines, due to the presence of around 2 million of our countrymen working in that region.

The Middle East is gorgeous, but again, politically, I would not want to go there.

I meet people and a lot of times, instead of saying, “Are you from the East Coast?” people just go, “you’re from the East Coast, right?”, having no reason to have known that. I don’t know what that is. Maybe it’s just that I’m Jewish.

Carved above the lintel were the words SCIENTIA POTESTAS EST. Science points east, I wondered? Science is portentous, yes? Science protests too much. Scientific potatoes rule. Had I stumbled on the lair of dangerous plant geneticists?

It is difficult for anyone to tell you what is going to happen. [Middle East] is an area where everything is on the brink of explosion.

Syria is geographically and politically in the middle of the Middle East. That is why we are in contact with most of the problems forever, let us say, whether directly or indirectly.

As a state, as a government, in 2001 we proposed to the United Nations to empty or to get rid of every WMD in the Middle East, and the United States stood against that proposal. This is our conviction and policy.