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| Syrians alone can resolve the crisis, Assad says |
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.jpg) President Bashar al-Assad has praised the Syrians for backing the army against foreign-sponsored militants fighting against the government, saying the people alone can resolve the 28-month crisis.
Speaking during a Ramadan fast-breaking feast -- iftar -- with Syrian political and religious figures on Sunday, Assad said, “We meet today to remember that there are men who sacrificed their lives to keep the homeland proud and the word of right high…We meet in solidarity with their families who lost those who are most precious to them…and with the needy people who are facing the accumulative burdens of life with patience and faith,” the official SANA news agency reported.
The Syrian president said that “we meet to renew the vow to defend the homeland and face the challenges no matter how big with more resolve and determination."
He stated that the meeting aims to underline that "the homeland doesn't abandon its sons during misfortunes, but rather stands by them with all moral and material support."
Assad said that it is "a month of forgiveness, mercy, communication, sacrifice, redemption and jihad in its correct meaning; that is jihad of work, accomplishing, creating and amity. To sum up, it's a month of reforming the man as soul and body."
He likened the soul and body to the "individual" and the "society" as neither of them can be reformed without the other.
"In order for us to reform the society, we must have dialogue among its individuals and spectra, and in order for this dialogue to be useful and fruitful with a meaning and an essence, it must be an honest and transparent dialogue," Assad noted.
He reiterated the need for an open and transparent dialogue without compliments if one wants to talk about what is happening in Syria. "As far as the society is concerned, compliments in these circumstances would be like an ostrich burying its head in the sand in order not to see what is going on around it."
"Burying the head in the sand for the society now means burying the homeland in the sand," Assad said.
He noted that talking openly now is easier than it was two years ago when many of the Syrians were deceived and fell in the trap of trying to understand what was going on.
The Syrian president however said that the most pressing question that has been raised since the first days or probably the first hours of the crisis is "when does the crisis end?"
"We however can't determine when it ends if we are unable to first determine who ends it. This means that we have to know who is the one responsible for ending it and how, and then comes the question why," he stated.
The Syrian leader said that it is only the Syrians themselves who can end the crisis. "Although the external factors are strong and influential and we all know this truth, but the external role, no matter how strong, has a helping or hindering effect; it could either accelerate the solution or prolong the crisis. As we repeatedly said, this external role is contingent on the external gaps we have in Syria."
"When we put all external factors aside and we say that there are terrorists, thieves and mercenaries who are killing for money and there are Syrian extremists …is this then an external produce?" Assad asked, only to answer that this is the production of the Syrian society, citing it as one of those gaps.
He also cited "the in-between nationalism" among these gaps, stressing that one can be in-between when it comes to politics as he can choose any of many political categories. "However, when it comes to the homeland, there is only white when you are with the homeland and black when you are against the homeland."
The Syrian president went on saying that this "in-between nationalism", despite being the output of lack of knowledge and awareness, has created an incubator of chaos and terrorism "which has unleashed beasts into the field…and those beasts have in turn created their own incubators…and started to multiply and unleash other beasts and import their brethren form across the homeland's border."
Assad highlighted the importance of being one hand; the white against the black, stressing that then "I'm sure without any hesitation and without exaggeration that we will be easily able…despite this high price and all the blood that has been shed, to come out of this crisis."
He affirmed that there can be no exclusion of any means when the goal is to emerge from a domestic crisis that negatively affects everybody, adding that this is the approach that Syria has followed since the start of the crisis.
The Syrian president noted that all the suggestions and proposals made at the beginning of the crisis to change certain laws and amend certain articles in the constitution have been met despite the fact that some of those suggestions were put forth in bad faith and with malice.
"Yet, we went ahead with the solution based on this idea that as a state we can't say that we will not walk the path of a solution if there are people in Syria who believe that this would lead to improving the situation," he added.
Assad lashed at those who claim to be representatives of the Syrian people while they are calling for foreign intervention at the same time, stressing that those do not even represent themselves but only the countries which have funded and created them and give them orders on what to do and what not to do.
"When I have the support of the people, I don't need the support of anyone else, because the people are the strongest," said Assad, condemning those who call for foreign support claiming that the army is killing the people.
He noted that any army in the world, when it tries to attack or kill the people, would immediately fall down because the army is made of the society and can never be exported or manufactured in a factory.
Assad stressed that Syria's belief in the political work was what made it deal with the external initiatives despite being aware of the "real intentions" behind them.
He stated that the Syrian crisis will only be solved by stamping out "terror".
"I don't believe that any reasonable man believes that terrorism can be handled by means of politics. Politics may play a role in dealing with terrorism before it emerges…However, when terrorism emerges and sabotage, killing and destruction start and spread, there can be no solution when dealing with terrorism except that of striking with an iron fist," Assad said.
"Terrorism should be hit in order for politics to move well…This doesn’t mean that there can’t be a parallel track…If we are striking terrorism and there is a political track running parallel, then there is no problem as long as this is not used as an excuse to stop combating terrorism," he added.
The government troops have recently conducted successful clean-up operations across the country, inflicting heavy losses on the militants.
The Syrian Army’s push against the militants rattled their sponsors.
Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said on June 26 that Saudi Arabia is trembling with fear because of the Syrian Army’s recent gains against the militants.
In a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Jeddah on June 25, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal insisted that the militants in Syria must be armed with anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons.
Zoubi said that the Saudi weapons and money is the main reason behind bloodshed in Syria, adding that Faisal “is lost in the Syrian blood.”
Syria has been gripped by deadly unrest since 2011. According to the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have been killed and millions of others displaced in the violence.
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