In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. A story that stirs the emotions, in which pain is distilled with hope — for the Syrian story is a story of struggle between the master and the servant, between the weak right that has no helper and the tyrant who possesses all the power of destruction. Our story is a story of representation, real, of noble meanings. The eternal battle between right and wrong. The story is told...
That confrontation, and the insistence, the patience and the pain, and the sacrifice and the beginning, and the clinging to noble values and honorable customs, and the serious preparation and the work, and then reliance upon God — the tools that support the right. And after that...
Madam President-General, Mr. Secretary-General, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Delegates, I have come to you from Damascus, the city of history and enlightenment, in a world that takes after this world. Yet Syria, for 60 years, has been under a tyrannical, oppressive regime that despises the land it rules and oppresses its friendly people. A long flame in the darkness...
It was met with killing, mutilation, burning, rape, and displacement. The former regime, in its war against our people, used tools of torture and killing, barrel bombs, chemical weapons, field executions, torture in the dark, forced displacement, and the effects of sectarian and ethnic strife. It used drugs as a weapon against our people and destroyed our country, verbally and physically, and demolished the most important cradles of history within it. It brought in the oldest foreign forces, militias, and gangs from the farthest corners of the earth, and entangled our beautiful country.
The former regime killed nearly a million people, maimed hundreds of thousands, displaced about 14 million people, and destroyed nearly two million homes over the heads of their inhabitants. Ladies and gentlemen, it targeted the weak people with chemical weapons in more than 200 documented attacks. Yes, our children, our women, and our youth inhaled the gas. The regime did all of that to impose its will by force, and it was a political will, despite everything that was offered to it. So what was left for this people but to line up and prepare for the great historical confrontation in a military battle that brought down a criminal system that had lasted 60 years, with every supporter of it, in a military battle that was full of mercy.
A military battle that did not cause the displacement of a single person or the killing of a single civilian, and that was directed with a victory in which there was no vengeance or enmity. The people truly returned in it and triumphed over their oppression. Yes, we triumphed for the oppressed, the tortured, and the forcibly displaced. We triumphed for the mothers of the martyrs and the missing, and for all the world's children and the children of... and paved the way for the return of refugees to their homeland. We destroyed the drug trade that used to move from our country to your countries during the former regime's era.
And Syria, with this victory, has transformed from a country that exports crises into a historic opportunity for stability, peace, and prosperity — Syria and Asia. Ladies and gentlemen, the unique Syrian achievement... has prompted some parties to try to stir up sectarian strife and religious fighting in pursuit of projects of division. The people are not looking to see disasters and Syria's return to square one. So the Syrian state worked to form committees to investigate the facts, and it granted the United Nations permission to investigate as well, and they reached similar results.
And I pledge to bring to justice everyone whose hands are stained with the blood of our country. The Israeli vehicles are operating in the Syrian state and against its people, attempting to exploit the transitional period, which exposes the region to entering a new cycle of conflicts whose end no one knows. In the face of this, Syria uses dialogue and diplomacy to confront this crisis.
We, from the moment of the fall of the regime, have been working on a vision that is based on several pillars: diplomacy, and economic development. We worked to vacate power, and we called for a national dialogue in which everyone participated, and we carried out reforms, and we held elections for representatives of institutions through... and with intensive diplomatic activity on the international stage, we gradually lifted the sanctions on Syria, and we amended the investment laws so that Syria can rely on itself, and laws that guarantee everyone's rights without exception. For Syria is a country with a civilization, and it must be a state of law that protects everyone's rights and freedoms, and ensures a healthy life. The past is behind us, and we will restore our dignity.
Which was declared today before... Syria today is returning to the position it deserves among the nations. This declaration is an echo of the will of a great people who forged glory on the heights, under the blessed roof, reclaiming its rights and dignity. On behalf of the Syrian people, I extend my thanks and gratitude to everyone who stood with the cause of the Syrian people and supported it, and to all the countries of the world and their peoples who rejoiced at the victory of the will of the Syrian people and who stand today beside it on its path of Islam and the nation. I thank Turkey and Qatar, and Qatar in particular, for confirming that the pain that Syria lived through is not something anyone wishes for. We are among the peoples that feel the magnitude of the suffering of war and bloodshed, and therefore we support the people of Gaza clearly.
Syria did not come... a new, collapsing... and it will...
[Music] [Applause]
