00:00Just really for the benefit of our viewers, because we broke the news in this studio of Bashar al-Assad being ousted, which felt surreal.
00:08You know, he's been around for years. His father was around from, you know, long before we were born.
00:12Well, certainly in my case, I mean, a new leader is installed. He's been brought in from the cold.
00:19He was there in Riyadh, flanked by President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the other side.
00:25We had President Trump describing him as tough and attractive. I mean, very flattering terminology.
00:32What does it feel like to you as a Syrian when you look back on these six months? Doesn't it all feel quite surreal?
00:38Actually, it's a dream. I will tell you, I was crying when they removed the sanctions,
00:48when Mohammed bin Salman make like this and this gesture and stand up and stood up and clap and the whole Saudis attend this step.
00:58It was it was one of its kind of historical incident for all Syrians.
01:05It's like the same weight of the victory date because we are back from the coma, economic coma in after 50 years.
01:17Hafiz Assad and Bashar Assad, they put us in in very isolated place so they will do whatever they want to do with this population for four, five decades.
01:28So I think it's really a huge move within six months, a huge move.
01:35Sudan, by the way, took a year and a half with big government in Sudan before the last coup to remove some of the sanctions.
01:45Within six months, you remove the sanctions and the SWIFT is working.
01:48And we have a lot of companies, including American companies, Qataris companies, French companies, United Arab Emirates.
01:56And by the way, the president was two days ago in the United Arab Emirates, the Syrian president.
02:00That means the great relationship between Syria and its neighbors.
02:05That never happened, by the way.
02:07Bashar Assad used to swear at all those Arab leaders.
02:11They say like there's a half men.
02:13They are not really those are like Bedouins.
02:17We don't deal with it.
02:18He speaks.
02:20He used to speak trash on the Arab leaders.
02:23We are now we are welcoming our Arab neighbors.
02:27So he was trying always to make some fight with the Arab neighbors to favor whom?
