Syrian Government Quotes & Sayings

We have evidence that a number of Bahrainis who oppose our government are being trained in Syria. I have seen the files and we have notified the Syrian authorities, but they deny any involvement. — Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa

If we have the kinds of confirmation that we need, we will once again work with the international community and the organization charged with monitoring compliance by the Syrian government, and we will reach out to patrons of Assad like Russia to put a stop to it. — Barack Obama

The struggle against terrorists in the territory of Syria should be structured in cooperation with the Syrian government, which clearly stated its readiness to join it. — Sergei Lavrov

US Vice President Joe Biden gave the US government's real view of its regional and Syrian allies with undiplomatic frankness when speaking at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard University's Institute of Politics on October 2. He told his audience that Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and UAE were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war. What did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad, except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world. — Patrick Cockburn

People have been fed misinformation. The fact is that the fighting that is going on on the ground in Syria is with Al Qaeda, with Jabhat al Nusra, with Daesh. The pockets, small pockets, of other groups are usually surrounded by these various extremist groups ... Once they stop fighting, there is nothing for the Syrian government to hit other than the terrorist organizations. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

At least US and Iranian leaders agree on something: Assad's downfall would tremendously weaken Iran's regional influence. From the beginning of the Syrian uprising, Iran worried that "if the Assad government fell, the replacement would have much stronger ties with the US government and Israeli government," according to Professor Foad Izadi, an assistant professor at the University of Tehran's Faculty of World Studies. He told me, "that was the dilemma that Iran had."9 — Reese Erlich

As soon as the legitimate Lebanese government is convinced that the conditions have ripened and that Lebanon is able to maintain stability on its own ... Then, the Syrian forces will return to their homeland. — Bashar Al-Assad

We have to put America's security first. The American people - we on this stage need to open our ears. We need to open our ears. The American people are not whispering to us. They are screaming to us. And they're screaming to us that it's our job to actually make this government work.It's so dysfunctional under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It's so ineffective. It's so ineffectual that the American people say, we don't trust them to do anything anymore. So I'm not going to let Syrian refugees, any Syrian refugees in this country. — Chris Christie

I kept seeing turning points. First the uprising. Then the creation of the Free Syrian Army, the FSA. Now a big assassination bombing in the heart of Assad's government. But the turn never came. It just got worse and worse. — Richard Engel

So there are two separate tracks. One track is for the Syrian government and the opposition that is interested in a peaceful future of Syria to come together for national unity, for the political process. At the same time, it is a requirement for everybody to stop supporting the extremist groups, to stop allowing them safe passage, to stop allowing them to receive weapons, to stop allowing them to receive financial assistance, and to come together in actually fighting them. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

If President Obama really wants to hurt the Syrian government, don't send cruise missiles. He should send over some of his economic advisers. — Jay Leno

We consider ISIS and extremism to be a threat to all of us in the region ... Our position is that we help the legitimate governments in the region that have representation in the United Nations. We help the Iraqi government on their request through advisers; we help the Syrian government on their request to help with advisers to fight extremists ... So it's both lawful and legitimate. — Mohammad Javad Zarif

We journalists are a bit like vultures, feasting on war, scandal and disaster. Turn on the news, and you see Syrian refugees, Volkswagen corruption, dysfunctional government. Yet that reflects a selection bias in how we report the news: We cover planes that crash, not planes that take off. — Nicholas Kristof