President says conflict was not one between government and opposition but between the "nation and its enemies." PHOTO: AFP/FILE
"Just because we have not found a partner, it does not mean we are not interested in a political solution, but that we did not find a partner," the president said to wild applause from crowds packed into the Dar al Assad Centre for Culture and Arts in Damascus.
He said the conflict was not one between the government and the opposition but between the "nation and its enemies."
"The one thing that is sure that those who we face today are those who carry the al Qaeda ideology," Assad said, repeating previous assertions that "foreign terrorists" are behind the uprising in his country.
"There are those who seek to partition Syria and weaken it. But Syria is stronger... and will remain sovereign... and this is what upsets the West."
Assad last spoke in public on June 3 when he addressed parliament in Damascus. In November he gave an interview to Russian television in which he dismissed suggestions he would go into exile, saying said he would "live and die" in Syria.
Since then he has not commented on the conflict which has ravaged his country, killing at least 60,000 people in the 21 months since an anti-regime revolt erupted in March 2011 according to UN figures.
In his speech on Sunday, however, he came out fighting, appealing to all Syrians to join together to defend the nation.
"Everyone must defend it... the attack on the entire nation... every citizen who is aware... and refusing to join solutions is taking the nation backwards," he said.
The president, who was frequently interrupted by chants of "With our soul with our blood we sacrifice ourselves for you O Bashar", said any change must come through constitutional means and appealed for dialogue once the fighting has ended.
He accused foreign powers of interfering in the conflict.
"Regional and international countries must stop funding the armed men to allow those displaced to return to their homes... right after that our military operations will cease."
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Blood-clotted US administration and red-necked UK is not happy with the progress against terrorists in Syria. What he said is " a revolution is of intellectuals and thinkers where are the intellectuals of this revolution?" All you ever see on the BBC and CNN (and others following) is ragged men making bombs and waving rifles chanting slogans, never ready for any conversation with Syrian people. So true, Assad does not seem to have any credible representative to talk to.