Syria President Bashar al-Assad said the region is going through a “critical juncture”, with the steadfastness of the Syrian people being a crucial factor in determining where the region is heading to.

Syria President Bashar al-Assad said the region is going through a “critical juncture”, with the steadfastness of the Syrian people being a crucial factor in determining where the region is heading to, SANA reported.

President al-Assad was speaking during his meeting with leadership members of Tartous branch of al-Baath Arab Socialist Party.

Added to that, the President stressed, the support of friends and the international acknowledgment of the dangers of terrorism on regional and international stability until reaching a real and genuine international cooperation against this ‘dangerous scourge’ are crucial for determining the future of the region.

President al-Assad praised the ‘advanced national sense’ that the Syrians embody in all Syrian areas, including Tartous province, a sense that he said is manifest through the sacrifices they are making and their hosting compatriots who have been displaced from terror-stricken areas.

“The unfolding crisis in Syria has shown the importance of al-Baath Party as an ideological party that is open to all, placing extra responsibility on it, especially that part of what we are living today is an intellectual, exclusionist warfare that needs to be confronted by thought, not only by battling terrorists on the ground,” added the President.

He indicated that the crisis in Syria has “added to the political awareness of citizens” which he said has made developing the performance, discourse and techniques of al-Baath Party a pressing necessity, a goal that the party has a great potential to achieve as it has a clear intellectual and political project derived from a ‘natural phenomenon, which is Arabism.’

“Syrian citizens are no longer comfortable with the old style,” the President said.

He underscored the significance of dialogue within al-Baath Party to confront future challenges. “It is dialogue that generates ideas, cements bases and prepares leadership cadres,” he said, emphasizing the necessity of finding new work mechanisms inside the Party.

Chief among these mechanisms, the President said, is fighting corruption, monitoring performance and weeding out opportunists.

Commenting on the situation in Syria and the latest regional and international developments, the President said the Syrian armed forces continue to repel terrorist organizations, emphasizing in the meantime the importance of national reconciliations.

Any international effort should serve to bolster these reconciliations and pressure the countries backing terrorists with funds and arms to cease their support, the President pointed out.

The President considered that the international situation ‘lacks vision in the current stage’ in light of the atrocities of terrorist organizations, namely the Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, known as ISIL.

“[ISIL] has not emerged out of thin air. ISIL came to cap accumulating wrong-headed policies by parties involved in the war against Syria that have supported, armed and funded terrorist and takfiri organizations to undermine Syria and strike the Syrians’ unity, ” said the President.