REPORT: Syria welcomes Russian chemical arms arsenal proposal

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said any repercussions if the United States targets Syria with military strikes "may take different forms," including "direct and indirect" effects.                      

Speaking in an interview with CBS News that aired on Monday, Assad said that in addition to direct responses, indirect impacts could include "instability and the spread of terrorism all over the region that will influence the West directly."           

"We have to expect the worst," Assad added in the interview.                       

Assad, who said Syria opposes the use of chemical weapons, also said that any strikes would boost the al-Qaeda offshoot in his country: "It's going to be direct support."                   

This comes as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with his Syrian counterpart that Russia and Syria urged the United States on Monday to focus on efforts to convene a peace conference and not on military action.                    

Lavrov said a US military strike on Syria could lead to the spread of terrorism, and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moalem said President Barack Obama would be backing terrorists should he chose to strike Syria, drawing comparisons with the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.                

Lavrov told Moalem that Russia's position on Syria is "clear and not subject to changes".                             

Moscow has made clear it is unconvinced the Syrian regime was behind the August 21 chemical weapons attack that the United States and its allies say was carried out by the government.                      

In turn, Moalem told Lavrov that the US military intervention in Syria could undermine all efforts that aim to convene a peace conference in Geneva in order to end the bloodshed.           

Lavrov, meanwhile, said Moscow would "continue to pursue the Russian-American initiative on convening the international conference, so-called Geneva 2".            

President Barack Obama on Monday planned to make his case for punishing Syrian President Bashar Assad for turning chemical weapons against his own people, a charge Assad denies in a new interview. Top administration officials are heading to Capitol Hill for more classified briefings. And White House national security adviser Susan Rice is scheduled for a speech at a Washington think tank timed to the public relations blitz.           

Washington and Paris say forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were behind the attack in which more than 1,400 are estimated to have been killed, and that they are considering air strikes to try to deter him from using such weapons again. 


Kerry, Hague hold joint conference in London:

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary William Hague and US Secretary of State John Kerry held a joint conference in London with talks featuring high on the Syrian crisis.

US Secretary of State Kerry said that Syria could prevent a military attack if President Bashar al-Assad handed over all his chemical weapons to the international community within the next week but added that Assad was not about to do so.            

Speaking to reporters in London, Kerry also stressed the relationship between Britain and the United States was as strong as ever despite the British parliament having decided not to join military action against Syria.

Positions:             

Moualem, who spoke to reporters through an interpreter after Russia expressed hope the proposal could avert military strikes against Syria, stopped short of saying explicitly that President Bashar al-Assad's government accepted it.                

Earlier, Russia said it would urge Syria to put its chemical weapons arsenal under international control if this would avert military strikes.                     

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who called a news conference to announce the proposal, said he had already conveyed the idea to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem at talks in Moscow and that Russia expected "a quick and, I hope, a positive answer."                        

In turn, the UN chief said he may ask the council to demand Syria move its chemical arms stocks to Syrian sites where they can be safely stored and destroyed in a bid to help the UN Security Council overcome its "embarrassing paralysis".       

Speaking to reporters in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he may also ask the 15-nation body to demand that Syria joins the international anti-chemical weapons convention, a treaty that Damascus has never signed.    

He was responding to questions about a Russian plan to place Syrian chemical arms under international control.                

For his part, British Prime Minister David Cameron Syria should be encouraged to place its chemical weapons arsenal under international supervision, but said the world needed to ensure that discussion of such an idea did not become a distraction.          

This as, the United States made clear it disagreed with a Russian request for the U.N. nuclear agency to analyze the possible risks involved if a Syrian reactor were to be hit during military strikes.    

Russia said last week any U.S.-led military action against Syria's government could have catastrophic effects if a research reactor near Damascus that contains radioactive uranium was struck, "by design or by chance".                 

Russia's Foreign Ministry called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to urgently assess the risk as the United States considers a punitive military strike in Syria over an alleged poison gas attack in its civil war.                    

In a statement to an IAEA board meeting, a senior US diplomat said: "It is our view that requests for comprehensive risk analyses of hypothetical scenarios are beyond the IAEA's statutory authority."      

Meanwhile, China urged the United States to proceed with extreme caution and return to the United Nations to discuss Syria after Washington said it was not seeking Security Council approval for action in response to a chemical weapons attack last month.        

On the field:              

A Syrian activist group said the army is attacking hills overlooking a rebel-held Christian-majority village near the capital Damascus.               

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighters from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra or Nusra Front and the Qalamon Liberation Front still control Maaloula, an ancient village that is home to two of the oldest surviving monasteries in Syria.              
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said troops attacked the hills around Maaloula early Monday under the cover of heavy shelling.             

Jabhat al-Nusra is considered one of the most hardline extremist groups and is an offshoot of al-Qaeda. They have been viewed as a potential threat to minorities in Syria, especially to Alawites and Christians.                    


REUTERS/AP/LBCI


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