“The battlefield will decide who is strong when they enter negotiations,” he said, according to one of the visitors, Abdelrahim Mourad, a former Parliament member whose party is allied with Hezbollah. “America is pragmatic. If they found out they were defeated and the regime is the winner, the Americans will deal with the facts.”

Whether that view is realistic or not, Mr. Assad’s opponents inside and outside Syria widely doubt that he is willing to make meaningful concessions — doubts he reinforced in the interview, refusing to recognize any element of the armed opposition as representing legitimate Syrian demands or even to talk to the rebels unless they disarm.

“We are willing to talk to anyone who wants to talk, without exceptions,” he said. “But that does not include terrorists; no state talks to terrorists. When they put down their arms and join the dialogue, then we will have no objections. Believing that a political conference will stop terrorism on the ground is unreal.”

Mr. Assad appeared to be backing off previous overtures by members of his government. On Feb. 25, Ali Haidar, the minister for national reconciliation, told Syria’s Parliament that the government was ready to meet with armed opposition groups.

“We, the government, and me, personally, will meet, without exceptions, with Syrian opposition groups inside and outside” the country, he said. “The president of the country has said that we will try with everyone that is against us politically. And even those who use arms — we must try with them.” However, Mr. Haidar is not part of Mr. Assad’s inner circle, so the weight of the statement was never clear.

In continuing reports of violence, opposition activists in Syria said Saturday that government forces had killed and then incinerated at least 17 people in a two-day operation in an upscale neighborhood of northwest Homs, long a hotbed of the insurgency. Some died when government forces shelled the fields surrounding the neighborhood, Al Waer, starting on Friday, and others were stabbed to death, said the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition news network with contacts in Syria. The bodies were later set on fire by soldiers and pro-government militias, the activists said.

The activists’ accounts could not be independently confirmed, but videos posted on YouTube and Facebook groups controlled by rebels showed charred bodies and shattered limbs, wrapped in red cloths and carpets.