Syrian Information Minister Muhsin Bilal Faces Criticism on Syria's Lack of Response to Reported Israeli Attack on Nuclear Facility

Following are excerpts from an interview with Syrian Information Minister Muhsin Bilal, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on January 23, 2008.

Muhsin Bilal: Syria represents the path of the official Arab resistance, which supports the Palestinian resistance, the Lebanese resistance, and the resistance in Iraq.

Interviewer: What resistance, sir?

Muhsin Bilal: Resistance...

Interviewer: You didn't display resistance when Israel bombed... Israel dropped bombs in Syria, and you did not fight back or retaliate. Instead, you talked about exercising restraint.

Muhsin Bilal: Israel carries out such attacks, and it gets condemned for them. The Syrian Arab Republic took a stand at the time, and informed the Security Council about it, and it reserved the right...

Interviewer: What Security Council? Where are your missiles? Where are your planes?

Muhsin Bilal: Syria reserves the right to determine the timing of its retaliation. We’ve said that we reserve the right to retaliate at the appropriate time.

Interviewer: What, there hasn’t been an appropriate time since 1973?

Muhsin Bilal: This is up to the Syrian leadership.

[...]

Have you ever seen a demonstration of more than 1,000 people in Syria against the regime?

Interviewer: In Syria? You suppress them. You prevent such demonstrations.

Muhsin Bilal: That’s not true.

Interviewer: Any such demonstration gets suppressed.

Muhsin Bilal: Absolutely not.

Interviewer: So people can go out and demonstrate?

Muhsin Bilal: Yes, yes.