DAMASCUS, (SANA)_ Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said Syria is strong and coherent and its institutions work despite the attack on as its army bravely faces the enemy who didn't leave any tools or weapons but used them.

"More than five thousands will-trained and of high military skills foreign militants who are equipped with most sophisticated weapons entered Syria through Turkey and the neighboring countries," al-Zoubi added in an interview with the Lebanese al-Manar TV Channel aired on Monday evening.

He pointed out that opposition is a national need as it constitutes the mirror of the government performance and the political work but the current confrontation is not with genuine political opposition but with armed terrorist groups which carry out the Western-Zionist project.

The Minister expressed his regret at the fact that terrorism in Syria is honored while the terrorism hit the United States, France and Spain and other countries is condemned and must be confronted.

"The reason for the delay of putting an end to terrorism is not a lack of ability, but to avoid causalities among civilians or destroying the cities as the army is facing armed gangs which occupy houses, displace their inhabitants, attack the governmental institutions and have the ability to communicate and get logistic and military support," the Minister said.

He held Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other countries responsible for the failure of mission of the former UN envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, asserting that if the UN new Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, wants his mission to be a success, he should call a spade a spade, particularly in terms of responsibility of those countries for the continued security and military escalation through sending gunmen, money and incitement.

The Minister underlined that Syria has a genuine interest in the success of Brahimi, so it will spare no efforts to achieve that.

He slammed Turkey's stance as it still establishes camps for training and harboring terrorists on its land and supply them with arms and ammunition in cooperation with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and many other countries.

The Minister hailed Iran's crystal-clear stance regarding extending help to solving the crisis in Syria, expressing Syria's support to any transparent effort contributes in the success of any initiative with true intention.

He stressed that the opposition's recent conference doesn't represent all the Syrian opposition but there is another conference for other powers of opposition in the forthcoming days, expressing hope to reach a national political dialogue with all sides without exclusion or cancelation.

"We talk about a national Syrian-Syrian dialogue without any foreign interference. If the opposition dare to sit to the dialogue table, we are ready to sit with them tomorrow; we have no problem with the attendance of the ambassadors and the UN envoy to Syria according to their request but without the presence of the Qatari, Saudi, Turkish and Israeli at the dialogue table as it is a redline."Minister al-Zoubi concluded.

H. Zain / Ghossoun