Syria is the proud heir of an ancient civilization that has a unique spectrum of minorities that encompasses Muslims and Christians of various denominations. There are at least ten such ethnic and religious groups.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Syria should not belong to one family, to one coterie, or to one party. It belongs to all the people of Syria equally, in all their religious and ethnic diversity.
Syria's population is 74% Sunni Muslim.
Syria is geographically and politically in the middle of the Middle East.
ISIS is in many ways a creation of the Syrian regime.
A majority of the Syrian people believe in the regime and support Bashar al-Assad.
We are not wedded to anyone in Syria. We are not concerned with any personality. We are concerned with keeping Syria in one piece, territorially integral, sovereign, independent and secular, where the rights of all groups, ethnic and others, are fully respected.
Syria, for all its problems, at least has a constitution that guarantees equal protection of citizens. Around the world, we have seen that this is essential where Christians are a minority and are not protected.
We can only talk to those who opt for the sovereign, territorially integral, secular, multiethnic and multi-confessional Syria.
Those who back the Syrian regime from now on will find themselves in an even more isolated and indefensible minority.
Both Iraq and Syria are a fissile mixture of ethnicities and religions thrown together after Versailles by departing French and British imperialists and only kept together by Baathist tyranny and violence.