Author: Kajoyan Gevork

TURKISH PM: OPPOSITION, GULEN ‘INSTRUCTED TO CREATE CHAOS’

Anadolu Agency, Turkey
Feb 10 2015

10 February 2015 15:05 (Last updated 10 February 2015 15:36)

Davutoglu says main opposition leader and U.S.-based preacher both
aim at dragging Turkey into turmoil.

ANKARA

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Tuesday that Turkey’s
main opposition party and the U.S.-based preacher Fethullah Gulen
“are receiving instructions from the same mastermind to drag Turkey
into chaos.”

“There is a hand behind this which gives the same instructions to
[main opposition Republican People’s Party chairman] Kemal Kilicdaroglu
and the Pennsylvania-based head of the parallel structure,” he told
a parliamentary group meeting of his Justice and Development, or
AK, Party.

Self-exiled U.S.-based Gulen and his so-called Hizmet movement are
accused of masterminding an illegal organization trying to topple
the Turkish government through what has been dubbed as the parallel
state — an alleged group of Turkish bureaucrats and senior officials
nestled within key institutions of the state, such as the police and
the judiciary.

The premier said the opposition and Pennsylvania-based preacher both
aimed at leading the country into a state of turmoil.

Davutoglu’s remarks were referring to Gulen’s Feb. 3 article in The New
York Times and the Turkish main opposition leader’s speech opposing
a new domestic security reform bill criminalizing participation in
protests with covered faces and making possession of Molotov cocktails
punishable with up to 5 years behind bars.

During his parliamentary address last week, Kilicdaroglu called on
the Turkish youth to take to the streets and promised that he will
be in the forefront of the protests.

The bill, which was first submitted to the parliamentary commission
in November 2014 in the wake of last October’s protests in the country
that resulted in the deaths of dozens of Turkish citizens, is expected
to be completed in the coming days, submitted for parliamentary
approval and pass into law before the summer break.

Davutoglu noted that the main opposition party regard chaos as the
only means of coming to power since “they have no hope of winning
the general election on June 7,” as he put it.

“Now that you are saying you are the leader of a democratic party, it
is better that you call people to the polls, rather than to resist,”
he said.

The Turkish premier said Kilicdaroglu will no longer be a politician
but become “a provocateur if he takes a Molotov cocktail in his hand
and leads people taking to the streets to protest.”

On Gulen’s New York Times article, Davutoglu said the
Pennsylvania-based preacher is signaling to the lobbies in the U.S by
“wrongfully accusing the Turkish government of oppressing minorities
and non-Muslim citizens.

“The article claims that minority rights are violated in Turkey as
April 24 (anniversary of the 1915 incidents) is approaching,” he said.

The premier also pledged that his government will continue to stand
against all such lobbying activities “while Palestine remains under
Israeli occupation.”

The 1915 incidents, which the Armenian diaspora and Armenia both
describe as “genocide,” took place during World War I when a portion
of the Armenian population living in the Ottoman Empire sided with
the invading Russians and revolted against the empire.

The uprisings came about after a decision by the empire to relocate
Armenians in eastern Anatolia.

In April 2014, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was then
the prime minister, had offered his condolences to Armenians, who died
during the 1915 incidents. The move was considered the beginning of
a normalization process between Turkey and Armenia.

LETTRE OUVERTE A ANGELA MERKEL

EU Reporter
9 fev 2015

Reporter Correspondant UE

Cher Angela Merkel,

D’ 21st de Janvier vous avez rencontre l’Aliev barbare. Vous avez
ignore le fait que Aliev a cree un Etat totalitaire en Azerbaïdjan
où les droits de l’homme ainsi que les droits des nations sont violes.

Vous le savez très bien, mais vous continuez a maintenir de bonnes
relations avec l’Azerbaïdjan et ce est a cause du petrole et du gaz.

Je dois mentionner que, bientôt, l’huile en Azerbaïdjan se terminera
et la mine de gaz ne est pas l’Azerbaïdjan il sera bientôt transmis a
l’Etat auquel elle appartient. Avec les prix de nos jours l’Azerbaïdjan
vend de l’huile et du gaz de $25 milliards qui est une très petite
somme pour l’Allemagne que le PNB (la production brute) de l’Allemagne
est $3.5 billion. Le petrole et le gaz de l’Azerbaïdjan ne seront
jamais une alternative pour l’Europe.

Je dois mentionner que le petrole et le gaz de la Terre seront bientôt
a sa fin. Donc, vous avez a chercher d’autres sources d’energie;
y compris Biopetrol et le biogaz que l’Europe fournira pour lui-meme.

Vous dites que l’Armenie un instrument pour la Russie. Vous avez tort,
L’Armenie est l’allie pour l’Europe, Russie, Les pays chretiens et
defend la Russie et l’Europe du sud.

Les Armeniens ne ont pas oublie qu’un certain nombre de pays chretiens
europeens avec l’aide de la Russie ont ete libere de l’Empire ottoman.

Armeniens ne ont pas oublie comment dans le 12-15e siècles en raison de
desaccord des pays chretiens les Turcs occupees Armenie, Byzance, Les
pays des Balkans, les Turcs ont atteint jusqu’a l’Italie et l’Allemagne
et l’Allemagne avec beaucoup de difficulte pourrait arreter les Turcs.

Les Armeniens ne ont pas oublie comment, dans 1915 avec l’avis
et l’autorisation d’Allemagne, les Turcs organise le genocide des
Armeniens juste en face des yeux de l’Europe.

Vous dites; “Nous avons compare le problème du Karabakh avec celle
de la Crimee avec nos propres mains et de nos jours, nous nous
sentons insultes pourquoi ces deux questions sont mises sur la meme
plate-forme”.

Vous avez raison quand vous dites que les problèmes du Karabakh et
la Crimee devraient pas etre comparees que les Russes ont vecu en
Crimee depuis plus de 300 annee attendant les Armeniens ont vecu dans
Karabakh depuis plus de 7000 ans et a cette epoque les ancetres de
votre Aliev etaient dans les montagnes du nord de la Chine et ils ne
ont pas descendre de la montagne comme ils ne ont pas transforme en
un etre humain a partir des singes.

Outre, Crimee d’une manière tout a fait justifiee a ete reunie
avec la Russie quant a lui la plus grande partie du Karabakh a ete
laisse avec ce qu’on appelle l’Azerbaïdjan, qui Lenine etabli sur
les territoires armeniens.

L’Allemagne a aucune obligation envers la Crimee.

Quant a Karabakh allemande a une obligation en raison de la reunion de
l’Est et Allemagne de l’Ouest comme si elle ne etait pour le mouvement
Karabakh, ni la guerre de Berlin serait detruit ni le Pacte de Varsovie
dissoudre, ni l’URSS.

Vous avez eu a reconnaître Karabakh depuis longtemps lieu de
collaborer avec barbare, proprietaire d’esclaves, dictateur Aliev
qui a une richesse de 200 milliards de dollars et il est surprenant
de constater que jusqu’a present, aucune sanction ne est appliquee
vers l’Azerbaïdjan, où la vie d’un etre humain ne vaut pas un centime.

Estime Merkel, Je ne vois pas de difference entre les islamistes Irak
(qui le viol, tuer et faire des esclaves des milliers de non musulmans
et les chretiens) Aliev et qui garde dans les millions des prisons
Lezguians, Tats, Kurdes, Talishs, Yazidies et d’autres petites nations
qui sont prives des droits elementaires.

Je ne serai pas surpris si un jour le chef des islamistes apparaît
en Europe.

Estime Merkel, la justice ne peut pas etre allemand ou russe, Turque
ou armenienne, il devrait correspondre a l’essence et etre defendue
par tout le monde si vous voulez garder la paix sur la Terre.

Pourquoi l’Est et l’Allemagne de l’Ouest peut etre unie et de l’Ouest
Armenie (qui est plus de la moitie de Turquie) ne peut etre uni a
l’Est Armenie.

Mais ne oubliez pas que nation allemande a une origine armenienne dont
vous pouvez vous vanter comme la nation armenienne est le plus epris
de paix, la nation la plus aimante humaine qui, après le Christ veut
que tous les gens soient frères independamment de leur nationalite,
la religion et la couleur de la peau.

Je espère que dans l’avenir, vous aurez du mal pour la justice, la
paix dans le monde entier. Croyez-moi l’humanite n’a pas d’autre moyen
de sortir soit nous allons detruire la Terre ou faire une famille unie.

Cordialement,

KYUG

SACRED JUSTICE

Huffington Post
Feb 10 2015

Marian Mesrobian MacCurdy , Writer, professor, singer, author of three
books–Sacred Justice, The Mind’s Eye, and Writing and Healing–and
essays,articles, and poems.

Posted: 02/10/2015 9:57 am EST

The year 2015 is the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in
which over a million Armenians were murdered by the Ottoman Turks. We
are already seeing articles that commemorate the Genocide, but one
story essential to understanding the Armenian response remains to be
told–that of the leadership of Operation Nemesis, a clandestine effort
to carry out the death sentences given to the Turkish architects of
the Genocide who had escaped punishment.

I grew up in my maternal grandparents’ small two-story frame house in
Syracuse, New York where heated, weighty conversations about Armenian
history and culture took place, but I knew nothing about Operation
Nemesis. I heard my how grandmother Eliza loaded rifles to protect the
town in the siege of Dortyol during the 1909 Adana massacres in which
30,000 Armenians were murdered; how her brother, Mihran stole past
Turkish guns to destroy the dam the Turks built to cripple the town’s
water supply. After the foreign consuls intervened to end the siege
Mihran was arrested and tortured for his efforts to save his people.

His Turkish jailors brought his bloody underwear home for his mother
to wash. My grandmother said she washed her son’s underwear with
her tears. When Eliza exhorted me to eat every last pea on my plate,
saying, “remember the starving Armenians,” it had more than rhetorical
power. I was raised on my grandmother’s stories of resistance, but my
grandfather never spoke of those days, and I, unconsciously respecting
his silence, never asked.

Aaron, my grandfather, spent most of his days in his red leather
chair near the wooden radio he listened to every day, silently
smoking his Camels with shaking fingers, perhaps from undiagnosed
Parkinsons that would, years later, steal my mother’s smile and cause
her shuffling gait. But when I was three, four, five, my medz-hairig
(grandfather), this quiet man who wore a three-piece suit nearly every
day of his life, who had private sessions with visiting dignitaries
and battle heroes like General Dro (Drastamat Kanayan), bounced me on
his foreleg, carried me through the doorways on his shoulders like
a coronated queen, and took me outside at dusk to survey the peach,
pear, apple orchards and the grape arbor beyond our back door. When my
grandmother and I made our weekly trip to Abajian Cleaners, I carried
his wool coat, hugging it to my chest, saying, “I love my medz-hairig.

I wish he would live forever.” My grandfather lived to 84, the last
few years in mental and visual darkness, his eyesight failing, his
prodigious brain’s neurons deadened from a series of strokes. No
one in our family knew until close to 25 years after his death that
my grandfather was the bursar and logistical leader of the covert
operation to assassinate the Turks responsible for the Armenian
Genocide. In 1990 tucked away in my grandfather’s files in the
upstairs study, the room I slept in as a small child, we found his
correspondence, some written in code, with his Nemesis comrades,
including Soghomon Tehlirian who shot Talaat Pasha, the primary
architect of the Genocide. Between 1920 and 1922 at least eight
perpetrators responsible for the genocide were killed. The men of
Operation Nemesis saw this effort as “a sacred work of justice”
as Shahan Natalie, one of the three leaders, described it.

When I was a small child our social life was organized around Armenian
events. The “vakh” vakh,” ladies, as we children called them, elderly
women dressed in black, who did not dance or laugh, whose signature
action was to wring their hands as they echoed the “vakh vahk” that so
defined them, were part of our landscape. As a child, I shrank from
these women. I knew they lived in an inner world that I did not want
to know. As children, we absorbed the meaning of the words “vakh vakh”
without being told: the phrase means “what a shame, what a pity.” But
I did not know then that “vakh” in Armenian means fear. We children
feared these women because we knew instinctively that we could become
them. The effects of genocide do not disappear by an act of will.

Researchers have shown that three quarters of Armenian survivors
interviewed asserted that they did not talk to anyone about their
experiences of the Genocide for fear of persecution and to protect
their children. But silence can exacerbate the effects of trauma,
which children can sense. Experiences as well as epigenetics–genetic
changes in response to traumatic life events–may affect our behavior
and perhaps that of our children. Perpetrators as well as victims
may also be affected by these problematic epigenetic changes. We
are left with the unsettling premise that not only the sins of the
fathers may be visited upon their children, but their responses from
being sinned against as well. If so, this means that the Genocide is
still happening–to both perpetrators and their victims.

At a lecture in Cambridge, MA on January 13, 2015 Turkish scholar
Taner Akcam was asked why he does the difficult work of telling
the story of the Armenian Genocide and its aftermath. He talked of
his family’s dedication to supporting human rights in Turkey and the
prison terms that generated. He spoke of his brother’s jailors sending
home his bloody underwear. Turk or Armenian–bloody underwear is the
same. His words remind me of those of Chief Seattle after the United
States government stole his people’s land, exiling them. With his
hand on the short governor’s head, the white conquerors around him,
and his people before him he said, “Tribe follows tribe, and nation
follows nation…. We may be brothers after all. We will see.” Let
us hope in this year of the centennial the door to truth and freedom
begins to open–for both Armenians and Turks.

TURKISH LEADER ACCUSES ‘JEWISH LOBBY’ OF PLOT TO TOPPLE REGIME

Algemeiner
Feb 10 2015

by Steven Emerson

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that his government would
not give into the “Jewish lobby,” which he claims is working against
the ruling AKP Party.

“I announce it from here: we have not and will not succumb to the
Jewish lobby, the Armenian lobby or the Turkish-Greek minority’s
lobbies,” Davutoglu said at a party gathering Sunday.

Arbitrary references to the “Jewish lobby” in the Muslim world can be
construed as anti-Semitic sentiment without factual evidence supporting
such claims. Leaders in various countries have historically blamed
Jews and Israel for internal woes to alleviate domestic pressure
and propagate the concept of an external enemy in order to cultivate
regime legitimacy.

The vague allegations come in the context of baseless accusations
by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who says that Mossad,
the Israeli intelligence service, was cooperating with the “parallel
structure,” or members within the government allegedly seeking to
topple the regime.

“The sincere people backing this parallel structure should see with
whom this structure is cooperating with … Shame on them if they
still cannot see that this structure is cooperating with the Mossad,”
Erdogan said on January 31.

Key Turkish leaders have made numerous controversial and anti-Semitic
statements in the past. Last year, Erdogan compared Israel to Hitler
and predicted that the Jewish state “will drown in the blood that
they shed” at a rally before his presidential election. The Turkish
president has also referred to Israel as a “crime against humanity.”

His government actively supports Hamas, a designated terrorist
organization that is committed to the Jewish state’s destruction.

Other senior Turkish officials have also blamed their country’s
problems on Jews.

The ruling AKP party mayor of Ankara also referenced the popular summer
2013 anti-government protests in Gezi as “a game of the Jewish lobby.”

“World powers and the Jewish Diaspora prompted the unrest and have
actively encouraged it,” said now former Turkish deputy prime minister
Besir Atalay in July 2013.

THE NKR MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS RECEIVED THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE “MUSIC FOR PEACE” PROJECT

2015-02-06 14:26

On February 6, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno Karabakh
Republic Karen Mirzoyan received the participants of the international
benevolent project “Music for Peace”, who had arrived in Artsakh in
the framework of their tour around the South Caucasus.

During the meeting, the musicians presented the goals of the
project, noting that through charity concerts and master-classes in
post-conflict zones they contributed to the strengthening of peace.

Karen Mirzoyan, in turn, noted that art doesn’t recognize borders and
stressed the importance of such projects aimed at bringing together
people of different political and religious views.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Nagorno-Karabakh Republic

VILLAGERS HAVE DIFFICULTY TO REACH THE CITY (VIDEO)

16:32 | February 10,2015 | Regions

The residents of the rural district called “Yugoslavian cottages” in
Vanadzor held a rally near Lori regional administration. They demanded
to see Governor Arthur Nalbandyan in order to remind once more of the
poor conditions of the community, especially the absence of transport
and bad roads, which are a big barrier to reach the city. In order
to go to the city the residents of this district first have to go to
Darpas community on foot.

Details in the video of “Lori” TV

TIGRAN KHZMALYAN: GAGIK TSARUKYAN LEGAL SUCCESSOR OF GOVERNMENT IN PLACE

by Nana Martirosyan

Tuesday, February 10, 16:35

Leader of Prosperous Armenia Party Gagik Tsarukyan is the legal
successor of the government in place. Consequently, all the reasonable
political and public forces must prevent his coming to power, Tigran
Khzmalyan, former member of Pre-Parliament NGO, film director, told
reporters, on February 10.

“Tsarukyan does not conceal that his party is not in the opposition.

He may lose his restaurants, casinos, TV channel, all his property
overnight. However, he openly speaks against the system as he belongs
to it and has a permission to do so,” Khzmalyan said. According to
him, Tsarukyan is just a reserve player who does not conceal his
ties with the second president Robert Kocharyan, whose interests,
as Khzmalyan believes, he protects. The film director is sure that
both Kocharyan and the ruling Republic Party of Armenia represent

Russia’s interests at the expense of the national interests of
Armenia. “They have re- launched the process of power retention
against the public will,” he said.

Garnik Isagoulyan, Leader of the National Security Party, in turn,
blamed the citizens for not fighting for their rights, which has
resulted in the current situation in the country. In this light, he
recommended Khzmalyan not to look for plots. Isagoulyan is sure that
Tsarukyan is not part of the ruling regime and really seeks radical
changes in the country. In this light, he recalled the February 5
meeting of the political forces and public organizations organized
by Tsarukyan.

It is noteworthy that the relations of the PAP and RPA have grown
tense recently. At the least meeting of the political forces and public
organizations, Tsarukyan promised large-scale rallies in Yerevan and
in the regions and blamed the authorities for the attack on Artak
Khachatryan, a member of the PAP political council.

Meanwhile, Armenia’s Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan – who is
Tsarukyan’s affiance – laid the responsibility for possible escalation
of the domestic political situation in Armenia on the PAP leader
Gagik Tsarukyan.

ENQUIRY TO ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES MINISTRY: WHICH SHPPS IN ZANGEZOUR BIOSPHERIC COMPLEX WERE FUNDED?

14:17 February 09, 2015

EcoLur

Arthur Ghazaryan, Chairman of Kapan-based “Union of Employees’ Rights
Protection” NGO has addressed an open enquiry to Energy and Natural
Resources Minister Yervand Zakharyan, which says, “In the frames of
“Support to Renewable Energy” KfW German Bank grants loans to the
construction of SHPPs. In 2012 KfW Bank granted loan of US $ 40
million. We would like to ask you to provide us information as follows:

· In the frames of “Support to Renewable Energy” which companies and
which SHPPs were funded in “Zangezour” biospheric complex established
in SyunikRegion and adjacent areas?

· What extent of KfW funds have been spent on financing SHPP
construction since 2004?

· We would like to ask you to provide us the documentation signed
between German KfW Bank and Energy and Natural Resources Ministry
relating to “Support to Renewable Energy” program.

· What are the conditions of licenses issued to SHPPs located within
mine and adjacent areas?

EX-ITALIAN PM MONTI: EUROPE CAN’T APPEAR TO BE ‘TOOL OF US INTERESTS’

Published time: February 10, 2015 11:05

Italy’s former Prime Minister Mario Monti (Reuters)

Washington’s potential willingness to arm the Ukrainian military has
elicited an unusually frank reaction from former Italian PM Mario
Monti, who warned that Europe must not be viewed merely as “tool”
of US global interests.

READ MORE: Le Pen says Washington attempting to start ‘war in Europe’

Recently speaking on private Italian broadcaster LA7, Monti warned that
there was a definite risk of the conflict in Ukraine spilling over.

“For now it’s a limited war, but be careful, you [advocates of arming
Ukraine] are creating among Europeans a climate of mistrust and mutual
misunderstanding that could take us too far,” he said.

When asked how he felt about Washington’s recent proposal that it
could send defensive lethal arms to the Ukrainian military, including
anti-tank and anti-mortar systems, Monti said he believed such a move
would prove “intolerable” to Russia.

READ MORE: Sarkozy: Crimea cannot be blamed for joining Russia

“I believe that the United States does not always realize that Europe
has its problems, and cannot be seen only as a tool of the global
interests of the United States,” he said.

Monti also noted how the West had to make a choice in its decision
to break with Russia, noting that it might be forced to pay a high
cost while losing an ally “in containing terrorism.”

Long viewed as a technocratic leader and Brussels insider, Monti,
who took over the reins from Silvio Berlusconi in 2011, has been a
perennial voice of moderation in Europe.

His comments echo similar statements made by former French Prime
minister Francois Fillon, who told public broadcaster France 5 on
Sunday that the US was attempting to “unleash a war in Europe, which
would end in catastrophe.”

Also on Saturday, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that
Europe is part of “a common civilization with Russia,” saying they
needed to avoid conflict on the continent.

“The interests of the Americans with the Russians are not the interests
of Europe and Russia,” he said, adding that,”we do not want the
revival of a Cold War between Europe and Russia.”

The leader of France’s rightwing National Front (FN), Marine Le Pen,
similarly took Brussels to task for not forming a Ukraine policy that
was independent from Washington’s position.

“European capitals do not have the wisdom to refuse to be dependent
on US positions on Ukraine,” Le Pen told French journalists on Sunday.

“Regarding Ukraine, we behave like American lackeys,” she said,
before warning that “the aim of the Americans is to start a war in
Europe to push NATO to the Russian border.”

PRESIDENT AL-ASSAD TO BBC NEWS: WE ARE DEFENDING CIVILIANS, AND MAKING DIALOGUE

10/02/2015

Interview given by H.E. President Bashar al-Assad to BBC News,
following is the full text:

Welcome to a BBC News Special. I am Jeremy Bowen. I am in Damascus, in
the Presidential Palace, the complex which overlooks Damascus city; and
here we have been interviewing the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.

Question 1: Mr. President, you’ve lost control of large areas of
Syria. The jihadist group that calls itself Islamic State has emerged.

There are perhaps 200,000 Syrians dead, millions have lost their
homes. The UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has called this the most
serious humanitarian crisis in the world since the Second World War.

Has Syria become a failed state?

President Assad: No, as long as the government and the state
institutions are fulfilling their duty towards the Syrian people,
we cannot talk about failed states. Talking about losing control is
something completely different. It’s like if you have an invasion of
terrorists coming from abroad, and the government is doing its job
in fighting and defending its country.

Question 2: Can we briefly go back to when all this started in 2011?

You said that there were mistakes made in the handling of those early
demonstrations. Did you make mistakes yourself?

President Assad: No, I never said we made mistakes in handling
this. I always say that anyone could make mistakes, but there’s a
difference between-

Question 3: Did you make mistakes?

President Assad: There is a difference between talking, or asking your
question, about policies and about practice. There’s a big difference.

If we go back to polices, we took the decision to fight terrorism
from the very beginning, we took the decision to make dialogue on the
national level, and I think those policies are correct. While, if you
want to talk about mistakes in practice and that some mistakes were
committed towards some civilians, that happened from time to time,
and some people were punished for these mistakes.

Question 4: But you didn’t make mistakes personally in the handling
of the crisis?

President Assad: I said every person makes mistakes every day,
otherwise if you deny the mistakes; you deny the human nature of
the people.

Question 5: You talked about the influence of terrorism, as you
called it, from the very beginning, but I was able as a reporter to
go to some of those early demonstrations inside Damascus, in areas
outside as well, and people there were not saying they wanted an
Islamic caliphate. They were saying they wanted freedom, democracy,
not the kind of vision that IS have now for the country. Do you think
you’ve got it wrong?

President Assad: You in the West called it, at that time, and some
still talk about that period as “peaceful-demonstration period” and
I will tell you that during the first few weeks, many policemen were
killed, shot dead. I don’t think they were shot dead and killed by the
sound waves of the demonstrators. So, it was just a fantasy to talk
about this. We have to talk about facts. From the very beginning, the
demonstrations weren’t peaceful. Some who joined those demonstrations,
they wanted democracy, that’s true, but that’s not the general case.

This is first. Second, you’re talking about 140 – the highest number
of demonstrations in one day, all over Syria – 140,000. Let’s make it
one million, let’s say I’m minimizing the number. I’m not, but let’s
say that. Make them one million. One million from 24 million Syrians
is nothing.

Question 6: Now, in 2012, I spoke – I was in Duma which is a suburb
of Damascus, as you know, which has been held by armed groups, armed
rebel groups – and I spoke to a man there who said he defected from
the Syrian Army and this is a quote, he said “I’ve escaped because
I can’t see my people, my Syrian family, being killed by our hands,”
and he meant the hands of the Syrian Armed Forces. Do you think that
some of the activities of the Syrian Army helped create the nightmare
that Syria is in right now?

President Assad: If you’re talking about the conflict taking the
military shape, any war is a bad war, and in any war you have civilian
casualties. That’s why every war is a bad war. So, you cannot talk
about a benign war without casualties. It could have happened, but
it was not policy. When you talk about governments, you talk about
policy. What decisions we make on a political level? As I said;
fighting terrorism, defending civilians, we are defending civilians,
and making dialogue. And if we were the one who killed our people,
as they said, how could we withstand four years while the people are
against us, supposedly, and the West, and the regional countries,
and I spent four years in my position with the government, with the
army, with the institutions, without public support? That’s impossible.

That’s mentally unpalatable.

Question 7: When you talk about terrorism versus what you represent,
I mean, you know the accusation that has been made, that you have
concentrated your forces in recent years against the non-jihadist
parts of the armed resistance, the armed opposition to you, and that
you have tried to give the Syrians, essentially, a false choice
between you and between the likes of Al Qaeda and Islamic State,
by trying to eliminate the middle ground. Perhaps it’s worked well
as a political tactic, hasn’t it? Was that your idea?

President Assad: Anyway, Obama answered your question when he said a
few months ago that waiting for, or depending on, what they called-
the so-called moderate opposition, was a fantasy. It was but a dream.

This is reality. So if I want to-

Question 8: They’re still trying to build up what they call this
moderate opposition, aren’t’ they? But this time to fight against
the Islamic State.

President Assad: But they said it’s a fantasy, he said it’s a fantasy,
we all know it’s a fantasy. Even in the Western media outlets, they
are talking about the ISIS, and al-Nusra, and Al Qaeda affiliates,
organizations and groups prevailing. It doesn’t happen suddenly. It’s
illogical, unrealistic to suddenly shift from moderate to extremist.

They have the same grassroots.

Question 9: I’ve met some of those fighters, and they’ve said to me
explicitly “we are not extremists, we are not Al Qaeda, we are not
ISIS.” They’ve said “if Islamic State came here, they’d kill us.” I
met one group last year, actually in Damascus, who said “we’d like
a country a bit more like Malaysia or Turkey.” I mean, that is not
jihadist, that is not dangerous, is it?

President Assad: So, why did the so-called moderate opposition
evaporate? That is the question. If you have answered-

Question 10: Some say that’s because you’ve attacked them. Because
you’ve killed them.

President Assad: Why didn’t we attack the extremists, like ISIS?

Question 11: That’s my question. Have you attacked them in the
same force?

President Assad: You can say that the government and the President
are shooting themselves in the foot. We ask the ISIS and al-Nusra
to attack our military bases, to kill our soldiers, to kidnap our
supporters, in order to eliminate the moderate opposition. Is that
realistic? Nobody can accept it.

Question 12: I’ve spent time on the frontline with soldiers from the
Syrian Army who insisted that they were patriotic, that they were
patriots, they weren’t cold-blooded killers, but I’ve also interviewed
people, and so have many other journalists and human rights people
and so on, who say that they have suffered badly at the hands of
Syrian soldiers. They can’t all have been lying, surely.

President Assad: How, how surely? Why are you sure?

Question 13: Well, because the weighted testimony, Human Rights Watch
for example, 30th of January this year, has said that forces loyal
to Bashar Assad, “have deliberately and viciously attacked civilians
in opposition-held areas using indiscriminate weapons, notoriously
barrel bombs.”

President Assad: This is a childish story they keep repeating in
the West.

Question 14: It’s childish?

President Assad: Childish. Why? Again, if somebody who’s against
his people, and against the regional powers, and the great powers,
and the West, and survives, how? If you kill the Syrian people, do
they support you, or do they become against you? As long as you have
the public support, it means that you are defending the people. If
you kill the people, they will be against you. That’s common logic,
common sense.

Question 15: What about barrel bombs? You don’t deny that your forces
use them?

President Assad: I know about the army. They use bullets, missiles, and
bombs. I haven’t heard of an army using barrels or maybe cooking pots.

Question 16: Large barrels full of explosives and projectiles which
are dropped from helicopters, and explode with devastating effect.

There’s been a lot of testimony about this thing.

President Assad: They are called bombs. We have bombs, missiles,
and bullets.

Question 17: But you wouldn’t deny that, included under the category
of bombs, are these barrel bombs, which are indiscriminate weapons?

President Assad: No, there are no indiscriminate weapons. When you
shoot, you aim, and when you aim, you aim at terrorists in order to
protect civilians. Again, if you’re talking about casualties, that’s
war. You cannot have war without casualties.

Question 18: There are always casualties in war, and civilians die as
well, but it is the responsibility under international humanitarian law
for belligerents from both sides to do everything they can to protect
civilians, and the accusation against the Syrian Army is that by using
barrel bombs, indiscriminate weapons – and Staffan de Mistura, again,
the UN envoy, he’s talked about the constant fear of barrel bombs –
means that you are not respecting humanitarian law by protecting your
own people. What do you say to that?

President Assad: First of all, we’ve been attacked in Damascus and in
Aleppo, we’ve been attacked by rebels, not vice versa. They’ve been
attacking the Syrians with mortars, so you have to retaliate and defend
your people. That’s self-evident. Second, again, you are talking about
somebody, the government, who is killing its people, and the people
supporting the government. This is contradiction. There’s no logic. But
answer, how can you have support and kill people at the same time?

Question 19: Of course you have many supporters among part of the
Syrian population, but in areas held by the rebels, the accusation
is your people have used indiscriminate weapons which they may well
have attacked places where there are armed rebels, but because there
are civilians there, civilians have also died, and if you used less
indiscriminate weapons, like barrels bombs, then this kind of thing
would not be happening.

President Assad: During the war, you can have any kind of
incrimination, any kind of allegations, every party could blame
the others, but you have to talk about the reality. The families of
those fighters, they came to the government in order to have refuge,
not vice versa. You can go now and see where they live and who takes
care of them. If we would kill civilians, civilians should have fled
to the other side, not come to us.

Question 20: Now, if you stopped barrel bombing, and it does happen,
would you not help your own case internationally? There are people now
who are saying that you are a potential partner in the fight against
the Islamic State and that you could be part of the solution, not
part of the problem, and it would be quite an easy thing, wouldn’t
it, simply to order your generals, to say “look, no more of these
attacks,” and that would be… that would no doubt would improve your
international standing, would it not?

President Assad: So, the first part of your question is about asking
us to stop fulfilling our duty to defend our people against the
terrorists?

Question 21: So, that’s legitimate use of force?

President Assad: Of course.

Question 22: Including barrel bombs?

President Assad: There are no barrel bombs.

Question 23: You don’t have barrel bombs at all?

President Assad: We don’t have barrels. Again, it’s like talking
about cooking pots. So, we don’t have cooking pots. We only have, like
any regular army, we have bombs, we have missiles, we have bullets,
and etcetera.

Question 24: You’ve given up your chemical weapons arsenal, but as
you know that this last week, the international organization which
disposed of the weapons, the Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons, condemned the use of chlorine gas here in Syria,
saying with a high degree of confidence it was used last summer,
not blaming any side, but saying that at the same time as these
attacks, 32 out of 37 people interviewed said they heard or seen
helicopters near the village. Now, the armed groups, the rebels,
don’t have helicopters. Your side has helicopters. Have they been
using chlorine gas to attack?

President Assad: Chlorine gas exists in any factory, in any house in
Syria, in anywhere in the world. It’s not a military material.

Question 25: It can be militarized.

President Assad: Anything can be militarized. This is first-

Question 26: Is chlorine gas being militarized?

President Assad: Second, if you want to use gas as a WMD, you have
to talk about thousands or maybe tens of thousands of victims in
a few hours. That didn’t happen in Syria. Third, we could with our
ordinary armaments-

Question 27: It did happen, last summer, in August of the previous
year, 2013, of course.

President Assad: Who verified who threw that gas on who? Who verified
the numbers?

Question 28: Your side didn’t do that attack?

President Assad: No. definitely not. We were close to the degree that
we could affect ourselves. Second, the number of the victims wasn’t as
they exaggerated in the media. So it’s not a WMD, it’s not about gas,
it’s something… we don’t know what it is, because we didn’t exist
in that region.

Question 29: So you’re not using chlorine gas?

President Assad: No, definitely not.

Question 30: On the fight against the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, the
U.S. and others have said you cannot be a partner in that fight. Would
you like to be a partner, would you like to join-

President Assad: Partner with who?

Question 31: Partner with the countries that are attacking Islamic
State at the moment.

President Assad: Do you mean the alliance?

Question 32: The Jordanians-

President Assad: No, definitely, we cannot, and we don’t have the will,
and we don’t want, for one simple reason; because we cannot be in an
alliance with a country who supports terrorism.

Question 33: Which country?

President Assad: Because you are fighting terrorism. Those countries
who make up the alliance, mainly most of them, support terrorism.

Question 34: You’ve been very harsh in your criticism of the Saudis.

Now, the Saudis say they are against Islamic State. They are frightened
of Islamic State because Islamic State do not want a royal family in
Saudi Arabia, so isn’t it logical that they want them out?

Why would they support them?

President Assad: First of all, the source of this Islamic State
ideology and other Al Qaeda-affiliated groups is the Wahabis that
are being supported by the royal family in Saudi Arabia. So, just to
say that we do and we don’t, this doesn’t matter; it’s what you do,
what is the action you are taking in order to prove that what you
are saying is correct.

Question 35: So, you are saying then that the Saudis bear a high
degree of responsibility for the emergence of these ideologies and
of these armed groups.

President Assad: Definitely, there’s no question

Question 36: So, why have they rounded up and imprisoned so many Al
Qaeda sympathizers inside Saudi Arabia itself?

President Assad: I think what they think is that once it’s going to
be their turn, because the society in that kingdom is more inclined to
be ISIS and to accept such ideologies as the Islamic State, that’s why.

Question 37: Let’s talk about American attitudes. Your departure from
office is still official American policy, but there are signs that
they are softening. Secretary of State John Kerry recently said that
instead of saying… he said that you should change your policies,
that it’s time for President Assad to put the people first, think
about the consequences. So, is that a lifeline that he’s offering? Is
he softening in his attitude? Do you believe that you are now being
seen as part of the solution?

President Assad: First of all, we don’t breathe through the Americans,
we only breathe through our citizens. That’s how we breathe. This is
first. So, it’s not a lifeline for us. Second, it depends on what he
means by changing… what has he said? What’s the word?

Question 38: Put the people first, think about the consequences
of their actions. This is seen as a softening because in the past,
they’ve said “first of all, Assad must go.”

President Assad: So, second, it depends on what Kerry meant by his
statement, or any other official. It’s not about him as a person.

Whatever they say, doesn’t mean for us to be puppets. Whatever they
say, for us it’s about being independent, to work for our interest,
to work for the common interest of others, but we’ll never be puppets
who work against our interests for their interests. So you have to
ask them what they meant by that statement.

Question 39: But you must… surely… Syria has been very isolated.

You’re under sanctions here, people can’t use credit cards, you’ve
been cut off from a lot of the commerce of the world. I mean, you
must surely welcome a situation which might get you back into the
family of nations in a way that you haven’t been since 2011.

President Assad: We’re not against cooperation with any country, we’ll
never be. We didn’t start this conflict with the others. They started,
they supported terrorists, they gave them the umbrella. It’s not about
isolating Syria now; it’s about embargo on the Syrian population or
the Syrian citizens. It’s different from isolation. It’s completely
different.

Question 40: Do you talk to the Americans? There are American planes
in the air above Syria the whole time. Do you coordinate?

President Assad: No, because they don’t talk to anyone unless he’s a
puppet, and they easily trampled over the international law, which
is about our sovereignty now. So, they don’t talk to us, we don’t
talk to them.

Question 41: But I’m curious, that at a time when there are… there’s
the American military in the air above Syria, and your people are in
the air, your air force, the Syrian air force, is in the air above
Syria, that there haven’t been any incidents between the two. No
shots seem to have been traded, no planes have been shot down. That
suggests to me surely that someone is talking to someone here.

President Assad: That’s correct, but again, there’s no direct
cooperation.

Question 42: Direct? Is it via Iraq? That’s what some people say.

President Assad: Through third parties, more than one party, Iraq and
other countries. Sometimes they convey messages, general messages,
but there’s nothing tactical.

Question 43: So, they don’t tell you “we’re going to be bombing at
Raqqa at 10 o’clock this evening, please keep out of the way?”

President Assad: We knew about the campaign before it’s started,
but we didn’t know about the details.

Question 44: And is that a continuing dialogue that you have through
third parties?

President Assad: There’s no dialogue. There’s, let’s say, information.

But not dialogue.

Question 45: They tell you things?

President Assad: Something like this.

Question 46: Do you tell them things?

President Assad: No.

Question 47: And apart from Iraq, which other countries-

President Assad: When we do something in our territory, or on our
territory, we don’t ask anyone, we don’t tell anyone. We just do it.

Question 48: You don’t say, “Look, if you see Syrian helicopters over
a certain area at this hour, please don’t shoot them down?”

President Assad: No. That’s I mean, there’s no tactical cooperation,
or through third party cooperation.

Question 49: Does the bombing of IS benefit your government? Chuck
Hagel, the former U.S. Defense Secretary, certainly said that the
bombing benefitted you, and he resigned shortly after he said that. Do
you feel safer as a result of the fact that the Americans are helping
you take care of your enemies?

President Assad: That question is contradicting with the first
question when you said that we were supporting ISIS in order to get
rid of the moderates. If we are against ISIS, we don’t support ISIS.

So, this question is more realistic. Yes, it will have some benefits,
but if it was more serious and more effective and more efficient. It’s
not that much.

Question 50: Can we talk about the humanitarian situation a little
bit? One of the effective military tactics your… the Syrian Army has
used, is to isolate areas held by rebels, and effectively to starve
them out. But that has had the effect also to starve the civilians,
and that, again, is against the laws of war, starving civilians.

President Assad: That’s not correct for one reason, because in most
of the areas where the rebels took over, the civilians fled and came
to our areas, so in most of the areas that we encircle and attack
are only militants.

Question 51: They may have come to your areas, not because they want
to come, but because their areas are being heavily bombed. I’ve been
in some of the suburbs of Damascus, which are a huge contrast to here
in the center, where sometimes rubble, you know, 20 meters high. And
no wonder people want to get out of there.

President Assad: No, that’s not realistic for one reason, because the
natural reaction of any person, of the people, of the families, of
the population, is to flee from any area where they expect a conflict.

That’s why they flee that area, because they expect fighting between
the army and the militants. They flee that area, and they come to
the government.

Question 52: It is the case though, that your government has restricted
the supply of medicines to rebel-held areas. Elizabeth Hoff, Syria
representative of the World Health Organization, said at the end
of last year that the government is restricting what is sent to
rebel-held areas. Do you accept that is a problem for the civilians
who are still in those areas?

President Assad: You know the northern city of al-Raqqa, that’s been
taken over by al-Nusra first then later ISIS, you know that?

Question 53: Yeah.

President Assad: You know that till this moment, we still send them
food and medicines and everything. So how can we do it for any other
area in Syria?

Question 54: Valerie Amos, who is the UN Under-Secretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs, said in a statement to the UN Security Council
in the end of January of this year, that… she criticized very
harshly what Islamic State and others are doing, but she also said
the government’s failing, she said, for example, last year, there
were 16 requests for aid convoys, 8 convoys, into Eastern Ghouta,
near Damascus, only 4 were carried out, the other 12 requests were,
“unanswered, denied, or subject to conditions that could not be
accommodated.” And so, for them, that adds up to the Syrian government
blocking aid convoys to civilians in those areas.

President Assad: These same areas are shelling Damascus every day. The
same area that she’s talking about. How can we prevent them from food,
and we cannot prevent them from having armaments?

Question 55: What are you saying, that they should bring in food
themselves rather than just shells?

President Assad: No, I mean that if we can prevent the food from
accessing those areas, can’t we prevent the armaments from accessing
the same areas? How can we allow the armaments to cross?

Question 56: I don’t know how you run the war, but what I said,
the UN is saying-

President Assad: Yes, that’s what I’m asking. I’m just pointing to the
contradictions in their statements, just to know. If you can prevent
food from accessing, you can prevent armaments, and definitely the
priority for us as a government is to prevent the armaments from
crossing.

Question 57: So, if civilians suffer as a result of the lack of these
convoys, that for you is unavoidable, collateral damage?

President Assad: No, we are talking about unrealistic, non-objective
statements. We cannot discuss it as a fact. You know, this is part of
the propaganda against Syria for the last four years. So, whenever
Amos or any other official or any other organization says something
against us, it doesn’t mean it’s real. We have to verify what they say,
and is it part of the propaganda, is it politicized, or what.

Question 58: Do you see yourself as the great survivor now of Middle
Eastern leaders? President Obama called for you to step down as
early as 2011. In 2013, there were lots of reports that you fled
to a Russian warship in the Mediterranean, but you’re still here,
your family is still here. Do you think that, looking back on it,
that you’ve had a lucky escape?

President Assad: No, for one reason; because it wasn’t about me,
to survive, it was about Syria, it was about terrorism, it was about
changing the state and president because they don’t like the state
or the president, they don’t like their polices. That’s what this is
about. It’s not a personalized problem, they want to personalize it
to link everything to the president.

Question 59: But what a price to pay! Syria is in ruins, there are
hundreds of thousands of people dead. You’ve been the commander,
you must bear command responsibility for some of that.

President Assad: Yes, according to the constitution and according to
the ethics of your job, it is your duty to protect your country when
it’s under attack, not to flee and run away, and that’s what we’ve
been doing.

Question 60: I spoke a teacher who comes from Qaboun, which is an area
which is being held by the rebels, after her school was hit, and she
said the shelling is coming from the Syrian Army side. She said it’s
the president’s responsibility to keep children out of this war. It’s
okay for him to fight the terrorists, but what have children done to
deserve this? They don’t have weapons. He needs, both sides she said,
but he needs to stop shelling the schools. What is your message to her?

President Assad: What is the aim of shelling schools, realistically?

Why would a government shell a school? What do we gain from that?

Question 61: Have you shelled schools?

President Assad: Why? No, definitely not. Why? Because we don’t have
an interest. Put aside the duty, put aside the morals of the issue,
talk realistically: what is the aim of any army to shell a school?

Question 62: Do you deny any-

President Assad: The government is going to pay to rebuild the school.

We’re still paying to maintain the destroyed schools. How can we shell
schools? Why do you want to kill students and children? What do we get?

Question 63: You’d say that teacher had the wrong idea?

President Assad: Again, it’s different between having casualties
during the war, because that’s a war, and every war in the world has
these side effects, and between aiming at schools. That’s the big
difference. There’s no way to aim at schools.

Question 64: What keeps you awake at night?

President Assad: What keeps me awake at night? Many reasons that
could affect any human. Life. Could be personal, could be work.

Question 65: Your job?

President Assad: Could be the job, could be personal, like anyone,
I’m human. Anything could affect any human, I’m human; I will be
affected by the same factors.

Question 66: Have you thought about those casualties, and felt or
understood the pain of their families and of the people wounded and
killed and injured?

President Assad: This is something we live in every day. Whether they
are from the opposition, from the other side, or whether they are
supporters, we live with it. We are humans, we live with casualties,
with the death issues on daily basis. There are families who lost
their dear ones, I lost members of my family, I lost friends, I lost
people I work with. This is something we live with every day in pain.

Question 67: President Assad, thank you very much.

President Assad: Thank you