Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview broadcast Wednesday that he does not discount the possibility of a US military attack even though threatened action was forestalled when he agreed to give up chemical weapons.
Assad also said in an interview broadcast by Venezuela's state-run Telesur network that his government has confessions from rebels that they brought chemical weapons into the civil war-wracked nation.
According to the broadcast's Spanish dubbing, Assad said all evidence pointed to rebel responsibility for the attack.
He said that Syrian authorities had uncovered chemical arms caches and labs and that the evidence had been turned over to Russia, which brokered the deal that helped persuade US President Barack Obama to pull back from threatened military action over an Aug. 21 gas attack that killed civilians in a Damascus suburb.
In a speech at the UN on Tuesday, Obama said he would not use military force to depose Assad. But Washington and Moscow remain at odds on how to hold Syria accountable if it does not live up to its pledge to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpile.
Assad predicted during the 40-minute interview that "terrorists" would try to block access of UN inspectors who enter Syria to secure the government's chemical arsenal.
While Assad said he had evidence that countries including Saudi Arabia were arming Syrian rebels, he said he had no proof that any particular country had supplied them with chemical weapons.
He was also asked about the apparent thaw in relations between the US and Iran, his government's chief patron in the region.
Assad called the development positive but added that he did not consider it to mean that Tehran's leaders trust Washington. He said it was important that the US stop pressuring Iran not to have nuclear technology.
Assad also accused the Obama administration of lying to US citizens by claiming it has proof that Assad's government was responsible for the Aug. 21 gas attack.
More than 100,000 people have been killed in
Syria's 2 1/2-year-old civil war.
On another note, the United Nations inspectors tasked with investigating the
alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria left their hotel on Thursday afternoon
toward an unknown direction, a AFP photographer reported.
Russia is ready to help guard Syria's chemical weapons sites when President Bashar al-Assad destroys chemical arms stockpiles and factories, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying on Thursday by news agencies.
Ryabkov was speaking as the United Nations Security Council works on developing a resolution on a chemical arms deal that is acceptable to both Russia and Western countries.
Meanwhile, a senior US official said that the United States and China are in strong
agreement on the need for a mandatory and binding UN Security Council resolution
on eradicating Syria's chemical arsenal.
Both countries also agree that the
15-member Security Council should act quickly on such a resolution, the official
told reporters after US Secretary of State John Kerry met Chinese Foreign
Minister Wang Yi.
On the field:
A mortar shell has slammed into
the Iraqi embassy in central Damascus in an attack that Iraqi state TV says
killed one person and wounded five.
The Iraqiya TV says three Iraqi
women were among those wounded in Thursday's attack.
Syrian anti-regime activists say
the attack struck the building that houses the consulate section within the
Iraqi embassy complex in the upscale Abu Roumanneh district of Damascus.
The Britain-based Syrian
Observatory says there are casualties but did not provide a figure.
There was no immediate claim of
responsibility for the attack. Rebels fighting to topple President Bashar
Assad's regime often fire mortar rounds into the Syrian capital, the seat of
his power.
AP/REUTERS
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