- Turkish drivers caught in crossfire in Syria, Turkish official says
- Turkey and Syria have had bad relations since the uprising began
- Syria's president says his enemies want to divide the country
- Bodies of Turkish jet's pilots have been recovered, Turkey's military says
(CNN) -- The Syrian president says that his country's opposition movement has failed to duplicate the kinds of mass protests that have unfolded in other Arab nations since the Arab Spring began more than a year ago, according to a Turkish newspaper.
"They wanted to bring people out into the streets in large numbers just like in Egypt and Tunisia," President Bashar al-Assad said in the latest installment of an interview published Thursday in the newspaper Cumhuriyet. "However they were not successful."
Al-Assad said people were paid the equivalent of $10 to $100 to participate in the protests.
He said the protests started peacefully, but opposition forces "wanted to form liberated areas by arming certain regions, like the Benghazi model" in Libya. The city of Benghazi in eastern Libya was the base for rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi's regime.
"Our army did not allow this," al-Assad said. "Now they are at a new stage: Assassinations, bombing state institutions, massacres targeting civilians and kidnappings have begun."
Shocking footage: Two Syrian boys killed 
Syrian rebels split amid new deaths 
Diplomacy for Syria 
'The Elders' on Syria Last year's mass protests in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya led to the ousting of leaders in those countries. Al-Assad said the aim of his foes "is to divide Syria or to create internal war." In response, he vowed, "the struggle against terrorism will continue."
Al-Assad, who blames "terrorists" for the violence, said countries such as the United States and Turkey are helping the opposition.
"The arms that are coming from the other side have to be stopped immediately. Of course also the logistical support. The support that the international powers especially, starting with the United States, to the terrorists has to stop."
He cited the Turkish government's "animosity." Syria and Turkey have been at odds over al-Assad's crackdown.
"They are setting up camps on the border and taking people from here to there," al-Assad said. "The government is trying to use the existing crisis for its own interests."
Tensions have spiked since last month, when Syria shot down a Turkish military jet. Soldiers attacked the plane because they thought it was from Israel, said al-Assad, who added that he regretted that his soldiers downed the Turkish jet. The bodies of the jet's two pilots were recovered Thursday in Syrian territorial waters, the Turkish military said.
Turkish authorities said the plane was flying one nautical mile outside Syrian airspace on June 22 when it was shot down, crashing inside the airspace. The bodies were taken to Malatya, the city in southeastern Turkey that is home to the air base from which the jet took off.
Separately, Turkish truck drivers were caught in a crossfire near the Syrian city of Aleppo, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
Turkey is trying to determine whether Syrian troops deliberately targeted them in the incident, which occurred Wednesday. Drivers left their trucks and escaped to safety, ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal told CNN.
YouTube videos show what appear to be burned-out Turkish trucks.
Syria's uprising began last year when the government cracked down on peaceful protests. The regime's show of force provoked a nationwide revolt with a growing rebel movement.
Videos from the country have shown thousands of anti-government forces taking to the streets of dozens of cities during the uprising.
One opposition group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Wednesday that more than 16,700 have been killed in nearly 16 months of unrest. More than 11,000 of them were civilians, it said.
At least 51 people died Thursday across the country, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said.
Will Russia finally turn on al-Assad? 
A Syrian military defector 
Syria rebel groups struggle to unite CNN cannot independently confirm such reports because Syria restricts access by international journalists.
Regime security forces have been accused of brutality, with human rights groups and the United Nations documenting widespread abuses against civilians.
In the interview, al-Assad was asked about U.N. Human Rights Council accusations of crimes against humanity by members of his units.
"As you know, the majority of these institutions are under the influence of the American and (W)estern administrations," he said. "These reports are written as a result of international power balance. The aim is to increase pressure. They can say whatever they want. We are right and we will not submit."
Pressed on whether his units committed abuses, he said, "Well of course mistakes are always made." But, he added, the government should not be blamed.
"Crimes are committed. If one group commits a crime, will the state be responsible for that?" he said. "These things happen everywhere in the world. Individual institutional crime is one thing; to blame the entire state is another thing."
Al-Assad was asked if he thought he would be elected if polls were held tomorrow.
"I cannot answer on behalf of my people. And I have not conducted a public poll. And what I do I'm not doing so that they elect me. What I do I'm doing because I believe in it."
He said he believes the "overwhelming majority" like him.
World powers, working with U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, have been trying to foster a transition plan led by Syrians that would lead to peace. And Friends of Syria, a Western- and Arab-backed group that meets for the third time Friday, is looking for ways to effect change.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived in Paris for the meeting late Thursday, "will consult with her colleagues on steps to increase pressure on the Assad regime and to support UN-Arab League Special Envoy Annan's efforts to end the violence and facilitate a political transition to a post-Assad Syria," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.
This year, Annan forged a six-point peace plan to end the conflict that included a call for a cease-fire. The U.N. Security Council formed an observer mission to monitor its impact, but suspended it last month as fighting intensified. Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria, told reporters Thursday in Damascus that it will consolidate aspects of the operation if it resumes.
Observers have expressed concern about another facet to the violence in Syria: the emergence of jihadists.
The Nusra Front for the People of the Levant, a group analysts have identified as a jihadist movement, has taken responsibility for attacks in the capital of Damascus and other locations.
It claimed responsibility on its website for a strike on a pro-government TV station outside of Damascus last month that left seven people dead.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told CNN that "extremist groups have an important role in the level of violence that is going on" in Syria.
For years, militants have been crossing into Iraq from Syria. Now, there's "solid information and intelligence" they're heading into Syria, Zebari said.
CNN's Ivan Watson, Yesim Comert and Joe Sterling contributed to this report.
