The President of Just and Comprehensive Peace

Development and Reforms

’ Comrades, There are solemn missions waiting and grand challenges facing and we will all, God willing, be as responsible as this historic responsibility be,’’ he said. ‘’ We shall confront challenges and will go together through your trust, love and support for the sake of the accomplishing these missions and surpassing those challenges ,’’

'' It was difficult to have genuine development in the region as a whole without reaching to peace; development itself could help the realization of peace. We should work for peace as to contribute to and as to push the process of development forward,''. "We are determined to follow up the process of development in Syria. As for the factor of time, it depends on existing capabilities of local means of development and of other means, we use through our friends,''

'' You develop things existed by your predecessor'' noting that this ongoing process in Syria does benefit by the enthusiasm of the youth and by the wisdom and direction of the old. "There are certain things realized in the country since coming to the presidency; however, there are other things which weren't realized as we did wish; at the same time, there are things realized better than what we expected,'' underlined the president.

"Having a vision does not mean you can accomplish it within a day or a year...we have a long way to go and a lot of work to do." "We are definitely moving forward. Not fast, but with the necessary speed,"

"Any development process faces difficulties and obstacles, the first and foremost is the lack of understanding of the process by individuals or people who might be with it. The lack of understanding doesn’t mean that they are against it. We moved in several axes, the first is to develop laws and we are still developing many of them. But the most important is to develop the mind, namely upgrading the level of people especially public employees, to make them realize the necessities and requirements of such development. The third is to make people in general understand development." ‏

"There are obstacles relating to academic and scientific qualification in certain fields. The first stage witnessed the issuance of laws, now we are at the stage of qualification and sending people to different countries and getting them come back with expertise from developed countries, in order to help us. Many things have been achieved quickly, such as private universities and banks." ‏

" The pace of our development depends upon the challenges that we must face, which we cannot always influence. For example, we have to deal with foreign powers meddling in our internal affairs."

"Once again, we cannot apply Western standards to development in the Orient. In Germany, you may have a religious Christian party, the CDU (Christian Democratic Union), but it has effectively assimilated itself into the fabric of the country. In return, your history prevents you from having any large nationalist parties. Our experience has shown us that the situation in Syria became stable because the entire society is secular. We must preserve that. "

"In the issue of internal reform ,when there is an intervention, it is rejected absolutely. We make a process of development and lead this pocess. I said in the taking oath speech: I have no magic wand , because the position , stand and data are clear. There are shortcomings in many aspects. There is a need for big development. We are going on with the process of development despite all the obstacles, and we are working broadening the participation of citizens in this process."

"Because when you say reforming, it's not only political reforming. It's the reforming in general, what you mean political, economical, technical, and all the other aspects of reform. So we don't control all these aspects. That's why we have a lot of obstacles to go forward. When you talk about the speed in this plan, regarding this plan, it's a matter what car do you have. You cannot go to fast or very fast in a old car. So you need this new car. What pillars do you have? You should put pillars when you have reform. These pillars constitute the base when you have this building upon this base. If it's not strong enough, it will fall. So these pillars related to our history and to these factors that I mentioned."

"And we're not perfect. Nobody's perfect. We are going steadily and consistently. Maybe not too fast, but we are consistent, we are committed. And not only the government, the majority of the people support this process. But we still have a long way to go. That doesn't mean we didn't do. We did a lot. We recently started studying modern law for multi-parties in Syria. We have multi-parties, but we're looking for more open law. We had private universities during the last two years. We had private media, private schools, private banking. We had many things we did during the last five years. For me, I don't think it's slow. It's fast. But we always want to be faster, and this is normal, and this is right, and want to achieve more. This is normal ambition.

"You have undergone through similar experiences in Turkey, and there was a long march that passed through different stages, in which there were failures. This is natural, because in any movement forward in a big state inhabited by millions or scores of millions, there must be different opinions, different understanding, and performance for those who are convinced with the process. It is also natural that there will be contradiction among all these forces until the state and the society reach a unified concept of the development process. And this needs time, intensive dialogue and benefit from failure. This is natural. But if we say that development should be speedy it is impossible, because this issue is related to the potentials of the country and the political circumstances in the region in general and in Syria in particular. For example, we are now besieged in all things; in technology, even the companies that might help in the process of development process are prevented from coming to Syria.‏‏" ‏

"We hear from foreign officials that they are keen on the development in Syria, but, in reality, they are against development in Syria. We have to view things objectively and then we will see the process moving, but not speedily as I said.‏‏ ‏ But the important thing is to keep this process moving forward, in short, there might be a slowliness, but not a halt of this process.‏‏ ‏"

"I didn’t invent reform. Reform starts from the challenges that you have. Our reform starts from the challenges, problems, obstacles and complaints before us. If you sit with any Syrian, you’ll mainly hear about the question of better living standards and more jobs. Syria is about 18 million people and 60 percent of them are under 25 years old. 300,000 babies are born every year and 200,000 need jobs every year. The most dangerous challenge for our country is to offer jobs for those young people. Second, the political reform is linked to economic and cultural reforms and to upgrading the whole society. But you need to have priorities. I do not mean by priorities a sequence, where I do the economic reform first then the political and so on, but rather to move in parallel terms. "

From HE’s Interview with PBS TV

"We should focus on the economic field first because it can’t wait; people are hungry because there is poverty and people want to make sure that their children go to good schools and that they have a good medical system. People can wait for other fields. In spite of that we are moving in all the fields together. People can wait for other fields. In spite of that we are moving in all the fields together. But what has changed in the last five years? In the first place our priority was economy then politics, but now after 9/11 events and the way they dealt with terrorism our priorities have changed." "First, our priority now is security because in the last two years we started to have more terrorism after we hadn’t seen it for two decades. Second comes the economy and then other fields. Now everybody is worried about their security. This change in priorities is not good for us, and it isn’t something we want but rather something we cannot ignore. This change of priorities won’t stop reform. More important than this is the state of mind. When you talk about democracy for example it is a state of mind to accept the other. When you have terrorism this is based on extremism. When you have extremism and terrorism you won’t have democracy because extremists and terrorists do not accept the other. That is why I said earlier that democracy is about how to accept the other opinion. That is how we were affected by the war on Iraq and the war on Afghanistan. "

"This is because they see reform as one word and as one world. There are hundreds and thousands of reforms according to each country. If they understand us and our circumstances and history, they will understand what reform I’m talking about. But when they see me going with reform in a different direction due to my own circumstances and facts, they will think he is talking about reform but going in a different direction. I have my own reform which is different from your reform, and if you are democratic you should accept my reform. That is why they say I am enigmatic, but we invite them to come and see that we are very clear; and I think we are the clearest among the countries of our region."

"Despite the difficult situation we are going through, we continue to implement our development plans in order to improve the living conditions of our citizens, and in the process of political, economic and administrative reform. We are also going ahead in our anti-corruption campaign and in widening the circle of accountability to involve all those who harm the interests of the people and the country. These pressing regional and international conditions, the challenges associated with them, and also the sorry Arab condition which does not call for optimism, pushes us towards more self-reliance, towards depending on our capabilities in the first place, to invest in our capabilities in a better manner, and to benefit from all patriotic and faithful efforts in the process of reform and modernization. The regional conference of the Baath Arab Socialist Party passed a number of ambitious resolutions which express the concerns and aspirations of our people. We are determined to put them into implementation according to set priorities which take into account the conditions and available resources. The relevant resolutions will be passed in the coming period. "

"We have to focus on pivotal sections in our society, and young people come at the forefront of these sections. This needs a comprehensive strategy which includes objectives that we want to achieve and clear executive programmes in relation to this vitals sector. "

"The world is moving very fast. And there are challenges produced by these changes. There have been new opportunities for achievement. Since at the heart of these changes lie information, communications and the digital revolution, we have all to work in order to integrate young people into this information age and to provide the integration mechanisms in all our institutions starting from the school, whether material mechanisms like laboratories, the internet, or activating the institutional, educational, cultural and media structures, in a manner that allows for embracing their creative energies and guarantee confidence in their capabilities on which we pin great hopes, because they are the real guarantee for the greatness and progress of our country. "

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