extremely polite
” I will continue having very important discussions with President Bashar al-Assad because he is part also of the solution. President Bashar al-Assad must be part of the solution for easing violence in Syria, and he would continue discussions with him after talks in Damascus earlier this week.”
Staffan De Mistura, the UN envoy to Syria, February 2015
“President Bashar al-Assad looks remarkably relaxed for a man who has been at the centre of the catastrophe that has hit Syria in the last four years.
He is extremely polite, and smiles quite a lot.
But when it comes to defending his record, or the conduct of the Syrian armed forces, he is firm.
He repeated more than once, in different ways, during an interview lasting almost half an hour that as president he has been nothing more than a patriot, fighting to save his country from disaster.
War, he accepted, caused casualties. But Syrian soldiers, also patriots, would, he says, never harm their own people deliberately, as a matter of policy.”
Jeremy Bowen, the BBC reporter, February 2015.
“Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “protected the Christians in Syria.”
US President Barrack Obama, September 12, 2014