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“The army is engaged in a crucial and heroic battle… on which the destiny of the nation and its people rests,” Assad said in a speech on Wednesday.

“The enemy is among us today, using agents to destabilize the country, the security of its citizens… and continues to exhaust our economic and scientific resources.”

The latest speech by the Syrian president comes as fighting continues between Syrian security forces and foreign-sponsored armed groups in several areas across the country.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Hisham Safieddine, journalist, al-Akhbar English, to further discuss the issue.

The video also offers the opinions of two other guests, Lawrence Freeman, Executive Intelligence Review, and Sukant Chandan, political commentator. The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: On Aleppo, do you support the strategy by the militants, or the so-called FSA – the Free Syrian Army – which puts civilian lives at risk?

Safieddine: I’m not a politician involved in this. What I can speak about is whether this is helping the uprising in Syria or not, and definitely it isn’t. This has become an all-out war. This has become a war by proxy.

The initial demands of the revolution are really now buried under the propaganda of both the regime and the armed groups, armed militants. There’s an immense amount of funding militarily taking place in Syria, both by Russia on one side to the regime, and by the Western states as well as the Persian Gulf states on the side of the militants.

I think what’s happened now is a serious threat of all-out war. We see that the Turkish troops are also amassing on the border. I think definitely we’ve come to a stage where it’s become basically the voice of a military solution has raised its ugly head.

I think this is boding extremely ill for the country because the state itself is being destroyed. It’s not simply anymore a matter of the survival of the regime, it’s the survival of the state. I see this as an extremely worrisome development both for the fight that’s going on in Aleppo and the one that’s going on in Damascus.

What we need now is a serious political solution, a serious transitional phase in which there is a genuine promise of a change in political power while making sure that we don’t have foreign control over this period. This is the difficult balance that we have to look at and think about instead of getting lost in this blame game which I think fairs squarely in both sides.

Press TV: Turkey is the one that, based on some reports, has actually this nerve cell of which the US, perhaps, is using Turkey, as some analysts have said, to do the job in Syria whether it’s the training – if it’s done by CIA and SAS operatives from the UK – on their soil and under the flow of weapons. Is Turkey the one, at this point, that the US is using in Syria?

Safieddine: You’re absolutely right. Turkey is increasingly becoming one of the main military players.

You may recall, and the viewers may recall that they’ve actually tried to fly across the Syrian border and their planes were shot down. A lot of people say possibly by Russian anti-aircraft missiles.

They’ve actually have setup a command and control center in Adana, and they have one of the longest borders with Syria.

If the Turks decide to weight in fully in this conflict, I think Iran might have to step in. It’s the other big regional power and Iran wouldn’t want Turkey so explicitly involved.

The second thing that may happen is we’ve heard news that the Assad regime has actually placed the PKK, certain elements of the PKK across the border. It’s given it some of the regions. So we may see an escalated conflict also erupt between PKK paramilitaries and the Turkish army.

Ironically, of course, Abdullah Ocalan, the head of the PKK, was turned over to Turkey by none other than Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father. There’s a reshuffling of military strategies.

I think your guests are quite right in the sense that the West and NATO does not seem to need a straight, direct intervention in the case of Syria. One of the reasons, sadly enough, is precisely because the regime itself has failed to actually capitalize on the initial capital Bashar al-Assad has.

Much of the fuel of this conflict are extremely impoverished Syrians who live in the belts in these regions. I’ve had friends who’ve been covering this conflict from inside in Aleppo, in Damascus. This is the impoverished belts. These are the fuel of the conflict.

Added to that, of course, elements of external fighters from Libya, you’ve got al-Qaeda. It’s a mix. We have to understand that it’s not simply these foreign fighters.

Today, Bashar al-Assad himself said they’re using internal agents: “amal ad dakhel” – by that he means, of course, Syrians.

Unless there is a political process set and a serious one, we are going to see a possible increased intervention by Turkey, although I think that’s not going to be extremely easy.

There’s also opposition to Erdogan’s policy within Turkey particularly in the secular opposition and I also think amongst some of the military elements in Turkey. So, he’s going to have a tough fight convincing them that it’s worth fighting the Assad regime even at the risk of resuscitating Kurdish rebellions in parts of the country.

GMA/JR