Damascus, SANA, President Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to the Czech paper Literarni Noviny. Following is the full text of the interview:
Question 1: Mr. President, I would like to start from the beginning. Less than a decade ago, Syria was building its relations with the west, and you were implementing World Bank-proposed reforms, and Mr. Kerry, until 2010, I believe, used to call you “my dear friend,” and somehow, overnight, everything changed, and you became a dictator and a Hitler and so on. What’s your opinion about that? How can you explain this dramatic change?
President Assad: In fact, I haven’t changed, neither have we changed our policies, values or principles. The problem lies with the West, and it’s not a new problem. It is related to the independence of our country. In fact, this is the problem of the west with many other countries, including Syria. During the period you refer to concerning relations with the West, between 2008 and 2010, relations were good, but in fact they were not based on mutual respect. For instance, France wanted Syria to play a role with Iran concerning the nuclear file. What was required was not to be part of that file, but to convince Iran to take steps which are against its interests. We refused to do that. They also wanted us to take a position against resistance in our region before putting an end to Israeli occupation and aggression against the Palestinians and other neighboring countries. We refused that too. They wanted us to sign the Euro-Association Agreement which was against our interests and was meant to turn our country into an open market for their products while giving us a very small share of their markets. We refused to do that because it is against the interests of the Syrian people.
These are a few examples of that relationship, and that’s why they took that decision. The same is happening now with Russia; two decades ago, Russia was a close friend of the West. Suddenly, Russia became an aggressive country; and the West started to demonize President Putin, and the same propaganda was used in both the Syrian and Russian cases. So, the problem has to do with the independence of these countries. The West wants client states ruled by puppets. This is the core issue with the West. It has nothing to do with democracy, freedom, or supporting the people in the region. An example is what happened in Libya and the continuing killing in Syria with Western support.