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"The West supported the war from the very beginning and he supported the terrorists, who started exploding everywhere and killing everyone and beheading [people]. The West supported Al-Qaeda."

"Russia is fighting for the international law and part of this international law [is] the sovereignty of different countries... Syria is one of them. Their values isn't about interference or dictate... We've had good relations with Russia for nearly seven decades now. They never, during our relations, tried to dictate, even if there's differences," he replied. "The only decision about what's going on in Syria and what's going to happen - it's the Syrian decision," the president concluded.

The US, the UK and France have supported terrorists in Syria and are responsible for the bloodshed in the country, Syrian President Bashar Assad said in responce to Western claims that he has been attacking his own people."It doesn't even hold together - this narrative," Assad told Mail on Sunday, talking about the accusations that he was behind the chemical attacks against civilians on Syrian soil and other repressions. He added thatHow could he have the support, while he's killing the same people?""That's' why [we] are advancing. We can't make those advancements just because we have Russian and Iranian support. They can't substitute the popular support," he explained in English.The terrorists, whom the Syrian military is fighting with the help of its allies, are "supported by the British government, the French government and the American [government] and their puppets whether in Europe or in our region."During the conflict, the West backed the so-called "moderate opposition" units in Syria, that, on many occasions, were almost impossible to distinguish from the jihadist groups. It was used by Islamic State and Al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra to get possession of an abundance of US and British-made arms, which they used against the government and population.On several occasions, the US-led coalition carried out strikes against Syrian government forces, which were claimed to have been carried out by mistake, but they were swiftly exploited by the terrorists . Both Damascus and Moscow have been accusing the West of working in coordination with the terrorists"It's not the role of the West to tell us, who's responsible in Syria. He interfered in sovereign country and is responsible of the killing in our country regardless of his narrative and his lies," the Syrian leader said.Assad was also questioned about Moscow's important role in the Syrian conflict, with the British paper's reporter asking: "Does Russia now make your decisions?"The Russian Air Force was first dispatched to Syria back in September 2015 on the official request of Damascus. The successful bombing campaign against the terrorists has helped reverse the military situation on the ground and paved the way for the advances of government forces, while the establishment of de-escalation zone has led to most of the Syrian territory currently being liberated.In one of his rare interviews with the Western media, Assad recalled his stay in London where he took postgraduate training in ophthalmology in the early 1990s. "It's impossible for you to live in a city and don't feel the special link with that city," he said of the British capital, and stressed