Arabic → English transcript

I want you to know that we were under this level of tension

We were conducting the interview

knowing that there is Kurdish public opinion in Erbil against this interview, yes.

But we said we were determined, because our goals are clear:

de- escalation, peace, rapprochement. Exactly. So actually,

we started the interview, we met President Al- Sharaa,

we chatted a bit for three or four minutes,

a man who has great charisma, a very smart man with a

not only military background,

but a strong intellectual and cultural background. And so we began

our meeting, of course.

I do not want to say any word that President Al- Sharaa said

so that we do not take any words out of context from this interview, but

from the very first question with which I started

the conversation, we felt from the first minutes that

the rhetoric was a bit high- ceilinged against QSD. And this kept increasing with

every question, as I tried to ask him about the scenes we were seeing, about

where is the message of de- escalation that we are here for? About the Kurds’ fear,

about everything.

I asked him about all these details. Exactly. I mean,

I asked him every question that came to my mind, and honestly he

had said before the interview,“ Ask whatever you want, there are no taboos.”

But the atmosphere started to escalate, meaning the more I tried

to get from President Shar‘ this message of de- escalation,

the more he would increase his attacks on SDF.

And on the other hand,

he would, in a very smart way,

announce his sympathy with the Kurds on one side, but

his attack on SDF was in fact a major attack.

To the point that I ended up telling him,

“ Mr. President,

this is tantamount to a declaration of war,

this is a threat.”“ In the interview? In the interview.” “ How long was the

interview?” It lasted 53 minutes,

I mean he had told us the maximum was thirty minutes, but I had many questions.

But I discovered

that President Shar‘ had run out of patience with SDF,

he had run out of patience with General Mazloum Abdi and would not give

him another chance,

unless we return to the agreement that

was signed between the Kurds and the Syrian president.

And this interview is, I mean, like a final warning.

The man is saying,“ There is one Syrian state, I will not accept…”

with armed groups other than the Syrian army, and that is his right

The president of Syria is the one who decides what he wants.

To be clear, and I am not one of those people who like to hide things in order to

block out all the details.

The moment we left President al- Sharaa,

I started making my calls, and I even asked Timar Reza, the executive

director of Moul Benna,

who was also there with us as we were leaving this meeting. I had one question,

and of course I called. Who did I call? It was you, Professor Malik, and others,

political advisers and media people at the station, and I had one question.

Watch this interview and answer me

whether these remarks contribute

to calming people down or to escalating the problem. And the opinion

was unanimous, unanimous, that these remarks

of course do not calm people down, neither in Syria nor in Erbil,

and quite the opposite, will inflame Kurdish feelings even more than they

already are

and will create a situation that could become bloody. Is this a Shams message

live on air? And from here, to continue on this path,

the decision was made that we should wait a little.