Almost half of the country is in the hands of isis or other groups fighting the regime. The war has also become a proxy battlefield for regional actors. John kerry suggested what others have suggested. There has to be a political solution. He included negotiations with syria. I spoke to Bashar Alassad last week for 60 minutes. Here is the full conversation. Thank you for allowing us to come here. We asked for this interview because your country has been at war for four years. It is a humanitarian crisis. Perhaps the worst on the crisis. Planet. 10 million have left their homes. Life expectancy is down. 50 of your country is occupied by hostile forces. It has he come a battleground for outside forces. What is next . We have seen, since i last visited, they rise of isis. Hezbollah. The United States becoming increasingly concerned about isis so much so that the president and the secretary of state have said there is a need for a negotiated settlement. President assad the meaning of your question is exaggerating the numbers of it. A bit. Families who lost their dear ones, it is a tragedy that has been going every family has lost something and their livelihood. A few thousands or hundreds of thousands, it is a tragedy. Every conflict should end up with dialogue. Article solutions between different parties. That is what we have been doing in syria. Dealing directly with the militants. We have succeeded in making reconciliations. Regarding the rise of isis in the context of events in syria in the last four years did not rise suddenly. It is not possible. It could not appear suddenly with all the resources financial and humanitarian resources, without support from the outside. The rise of isis did not happen suddenly. It was a result of events that happened at the beginning of the conflict that we mentioned many times, but not in the west. I want to mention the statement of kerry regarding the dialogue. What we have in so far is only a Statement Read nothing concrete. No approach towards the situation or problem in syria. In syria, we could say, every dialogue is a positive thing. We will be open to any dialogue with anyone, including the United States, regarding anything based on mutual respect. I would say this approach of the United States, toward syria or others to make dialogue, is a positive thing but we have to wait for the reality. Charlie what is the communication between your government and the u. S. . President assad there is no dialogue. Nothing yet. Charlie would you like to have that . President assad any dialogue is positive in principle. Especially regarding the fighting of terrorism. Charlie what are you prepared to do in terms of negotiations . If part of that is to see a transition government, would you see that . President assad anything regarding syrian politics should the related to the Syrian People. We will not discuss with the americans or anyone about our constitution, our laws. We can cooperate about fighting terrorism and putting pressure on countries like saudi arabia and turkey. Countries that support terrorists politically. Charlie this cannot and militarily. You agree . President assad every war every conflict, should end with a political solution. Charlie dormy a roadmap for a political solution. What does it look like . President assad different levels. Regional, international. The most important part in the local, it should have two things. The dialogue between syrians about everything. The political system. Other details beyond this. The future of the country. Second direct dialogue with the militants as we did to give them amnesty. They give up armament and go back to their normal life. Charlie when you say militants who do you mean . President assad some are terrorists, some were implicated by events for Different Reasons. Whoever carries guns and tries to destroy the Public Infrastructure or tax people attacks people that is a militants. Charlie so much of the power is in your hands to engage in the process. If they demanded you step down before you negotiate, that is on exit the ball to you . President assad by the militants . Charlie i mean by the United States and parties to the conversation. President assad no external party has anything to do with the future of syria. We will not discuss it with them. Whenever the Syrian People want to change their president , it should be changed. It must be through Political Parties and constitutional processes. That is how we change president s. Not through terrorism and external intervention. Charlie some said isis was the best thing that happened to you and some of the things you have done have benefited them . President assad lets go back to what president obama said in one of his interviews. He said the moderate opposition in syria we always said, there is no moderate opposition. The rise of isis was not seven. Suddden. That amputation, eating the heart of the victims, beheading come of that started from the beginning of the conflict. It started with what they call the moderate opposition. What is happening with all of them, they attacked military bases. They killed our soldiers. They destroyed our economy. How could that be the best thing that happened to me . In what logic . To destroy the country . To kill your supporters and others . In what sense could that be the best thing that happened to me or the government . That is he logical illogical. Charlie with the new reality of isis, what changes do you see an attitude toward you in staying in the Syrian Government . President assad regarding the west . I think the west has changed their regulations after the rise of isis. That didnt mean they change their approach to conflict in syria and iraq. I dont they have learned the lesson. The very beginning of the problem, from the western perspective, is to change the system or the president or the government they do not like. They are still moving in the same direction. That is why nothing concrete has changed. Their priority is to fight isis but that does not mean their priority is to get writ of isis. Charlie how can you see the u. S. Cooperating with syria . President assad there is no direct cooperation. In the future, there must be direct dialogue to fight terrorism because it is on our ground, in our soil. They cannot defeat it without our cooperation. We know the reality. Charlie most people believe there is unofficial cooperation and it goes through iraq. How does that work . American airstrikes, so it can coordinate with what you are doing . President assad through a third party. It was very clear they were attacking isis not the u. S. Not the syrian army. Charlie which thirdparty . President assad iraqi officials, russian officials. Charlie what is the level of that information . Just about airstrikes . Other activities on the ground that are taking place . President assad no details only the headlines. The principle that they are going to attack isis in syria and iraq. Cahrlie charlie when you shut down an american drone, did you know it was american . President assad it will not tell you it is american. When you have foreign aircraft, you should it. That is military rules. Charlie how much benefit are you getting from american airstrikes in syria reducing the power of isis . President assad sometimes you could have local benefit but in general if you want to talk in terms of isis actually isis has expanded since the beginning of the strikes. Not like some american wants to sugar coat the situation as the to say that its getting better. Isis is being defeated and so on. Actually, no, you have more recruits. Some estimates that they have 1,000 recruits every month in syria. And iraq, they are expanding in libya and many other al qaeda affiliate organizations have announced their allegiance to isis. Charlie how much territory do they control in syria . President assad yeah, its not regular war. You dont have criteria. Its not an army that makes incursion. They try to infiltrate any area when there is no army and we have inhibitance. The question, how much incubator they have, thats the question. How much heart and minds they won so far. Charlie and how much of that . How do you measure that president assad you cannot measure it but you can tell that the majority of the people who suffered from isis, they are supporting the government and, of course, the rest of the Syrian People are afraid from isis and i dont think they would i think they lost a lot of hearts and minds. Charlie theyve lost a lot . President assad they have lost. Except the very ideological people who have wahhabi state of mind and ideology. Charlie explain to me why people are fleeing to go to refugee camps in jordan and turkey. What their are they fleeing from . President assad those camps started being built before there was real conflict in syria. To be used as humanitarian headlines, to be used against syria. A pretext for military intervention. They started giving incentive for people to flee. Now, the majority of those fled because of terrorism. I will give you an example. During the president ial elections even in jordan, they voted for the president. That is a concrete indication. Charlie i have interviewed some of them, and they were fearful of the syrian army and repercussions in syria people knew they were being interviewed. President assad you have different kind of people and for kinds of perceptions. You cannot say everybody fled just because of the terrorists. Some because of the situation. They want to go to a safer place. They have Different Reasons for the refugees. 90 of the civilian casualties 90 come from the syrian army. President assad how did you get that result . Charlie that was a report that was issued in the last six months. President assad ok. As i said earlier, the war, its not about its not traditional war. Its not about capturing land and gaining land. Its about winning the hearts and minds of the syrians. We cannot win the heart and minds of the syrians while we are killing syrians. We cannot sustain four years in that position as a government. And me as president , while the rest of the world, most of the world, the great powers, the regional power, are against me and my people are against me. Thats impossible. I mean this logic has no leg to stand on. So this is not realistic and this is against our interests as government is to kill the people. What do we get . Charlie there are weapons of war that have been used that most people look down on with great one is chlorine gas. They believe that has been used here. They said there is evidence of that and they would like to have the right to inspect to see where its coming from. As you know, barrel bombs have been used. And they come from helicopters. And the only people who have helicopters is the syrian army. President assad its very important. This is part of the malicious propaganda against syria. First of all, the chlorine gas is not military gas. You can buy it anywhere. Charlie but it can be weaponized president assad no, because its not very effective its not used as military gas. Thats very selfevident. Traditional arms is more important than chlorine. And if it was very effective the terrorists would have used this on a larger scale. Because its not effective, its not used very much. Charlie then why doesnt somebody come in and inspect it and see whether its been used or not . Youd be happy for that . President assad of course. We all we always ask a delegation, impartial delegation to come and investigate. But i mean logically and realistically it cannot be used as a military. This is part of the propaganda because, as you know, in the media when it bleeds it leads. And they always look for something that bleeds, which is the chlorine gas and the barrel bombs. This is not realistic. No army uses bombs that dont aim. The state of the art. The precision missiles have killed more civilians than terrorists. It is not about a on that doesnt aim. It is about the way you use it. Charlie you do use barrel bombs . Youre just saying president assad no, no. Theres no such a thing called barrel bombs. We have bombs. And any bomb is about killing. Charlie you have often spoken charlie most people understand what a barrel bomb is. They understand how it is dropped from eight a heleicopter. President assad we have good military in syria. We dont have to make bombs from barrels. This is only used to demonize the syrian army. Ppresident assad if they were used by the syrian army, would you order them to stop . President assad again, what is a barrel bomb. Terrell charlie it is a bomb that inflicts civilian casualties. President assad every bomb is made to kill. It is not about the bomb. Lets talk about casualties. Every war is malignant, bad. You dont have the nine wars. Thats why wars are bad because you always have casualties. It is not related to a certain kind of bomb or bullet. That is another issue. Charlie are you denying barrel bombs are used inflicting civilian casualties . President assad as i say, we use bombs. You dont describe what we used by the shape. You dont describe it this way. You use armament. If you have casualties, it is a mistake that could happen in every war. Your aim is to kill terrorists, not to to your people. Charlie you are acknowledging they come from helicopters. President assad this is a technical issue. You can throw them from an airplane or missile. You dont have to use helicopters. Charlie if i hear you correctly, you would knowledge they are being used but they are like other bombs and are not necessarily different than any other weapon. President assad we dont have a bomb called a barrel bomb. The name came through the media or from the media. We dont have it. When you call our bombs, that is related to the media and adopted by the west in order to demonize the syrian army. We dont have something called barrel bombs that kills indiscriminately. You can call it whatever you want. We have regular, traditional armaments. Charlie you have often spoken about the danger of a wider war in the middle east. President assad yeah. Charlie can you talk about the parties involved . And characterize how you see them. Let me begin with saudi arabia. President assad saudi arabia is an autocracy. Medieval system thats based on the wahhabi dark ideology. Actually, say its a marriage between the wahhabi and the political system for 200 years now. Thats how we look at it. Charlie and what is their connection to isis . President assad the same ideology. The same background. Charlie so isis and saudi arabia are one and the same . President assad the same ideology. Charlie same ideology. President assad its wahhabi ideology. Their ideology is based on the books of the wahhabi and saudi arabia. Charlie so you believe that all wahhabis have the same ideology as isis president assad exactly. Definitely. And thats by isis, by al qaeda by al nusra. Its not something we discover or we try to promote. Its very i mean their book they use the same books to indoctrinate the people. Charlie what about turkey . President assad turkey lets say its about erdogan. His Muslim Brotherhood fanatics. It doesnt mean that he is a member. But hes a fanatic. Charlie president erdogan is president assad is a Muslim Brotherhood fanatic. And hes somebody whos suffering from political megalomania. And he thinks that he is becoming the sultan of the new era of the 21st century. Charlie you think he could stop the border if he wanted to . President assad yeah, of course. Definitely. He doesnt only ignore the terrorists from coming to syria. He supports them, logistically and militarily. Directly. On a daily basis. And if you take the example of the city where the kurds were fighting isis and the military campaign started, it took them four months to liberate that small city. Not only because the airstrikes happened but because of the direct support of turks for isis. Charlie they were supporting them directly . President assad directly. Charlie you were quoted as saying the syrian army could have a limited them in three weeks . President assad they were liberated in a few weeks without using airstrikes. Cahrlie charlie why did you spend more time attacking aleppo . President assad we were getting ready of terrorists. Rid of terrorists. There are no moderates and aleppo. Charlie the definition of a terrorist is what . President assad whenever you hold a gun and destroy public buildings and private property. Charlie anybody who opposes your government in syria . President assad the word opposition is political opposition. Do you have military opposition . Would you excepted . You would not. Nobody except military opposition. Charlie it is one thing to say there is military opposition. It is another thing to call them terrorism. President Assad Military opposition is terrorism. Whenever you hold a gun and try to kill, that is terrorism. It is not my definition. Whenever you want to make opposition, it is going to be political opposition. Like your country. You have the same criteria. We do not have different criteria. Charlie if there is a negotiation, would you accept as part of your negotiation, to share power, whether they are moderates or terrorist, if they lay down their arms and say, we want to be part of a future transition government in syria . President assad whenever they lay down their arms, they are not terrorists anymore. Charlie isis . President assad isis will not. This is, how do you say, virtual . They want to fight and be killed and go to paradise. They will not negotiate. We cannot answer something which is virtual, not realistic. Many of the militants lay down their arms and they are working with the government now. That is reality. It is happening and part of reconciliation. People are interested in politics. Some are interested only going back to their normal life. Not being part of politics. Of course we are open. Whenever there is political opposition, we are open to deal with it. Charlie secretary kerry has called you a brutal dictator. Does that bother you . President assad you want the rest of the world to know the reality. This kind of description to hear it from an official, would not be important unless the syrians citizens said this word. Because the Syrian People still support you, it is impossible to be a dictator killing your people and have the support of the people. Charlie he said there was a point several years ago in which you were in a difficult lace. So place. Some people thought the government would fall, even suggestions you were planning to leave. And then the iranians and has bullock came in and the tide to turn and hezbollah came in and the tight begin to turn. If that is true, it means the Syrian People were not supporting you. Before Foreign For