Syria's deputy foreign minister on Thursday said he feared Western countries were voicing concerns over his country's possible use of chemical weapons to lay the ground for intervention, in spite of Damascus saying it would not use them.
Faisal Maqdad said media reports citing U.S. and European intelligence officials as saying Syria was preparing its chemical
weapons for possible use were “theatre’’.
Syria has been mired in bloodshed since the start of a 20-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule with his
army turning the full force of its artillery and fighter jets against comparatively lightly armed rebels.
Opposition forces and Western intelligence officials have said that recent rebel advances including around the capital Damascus – may provoke Assad into using chemical weapons, which he is widely believed to possess.
“Syria stresses again, for a tenth and a hundredth time, if we have?such weapons, they would not be used against our people. We would not commit suicide,’’ Maqdad said.
“In the event that foreign powers actually consider an aggression, they should consider the consequences. I believe the cost will
be high … They need to understand that they are putting the entire region and its environs to danger if they tried to commit such
a folly.’’
Syria straddles the fault lines of several ethnic and regional conflicts in the Middle East, from Turkey's fight with the Kurds on Syria's northern border, to sectarian tensions in Iraq in the east.
It is also still formally at war with Israel, its neighbour.
Assad blames the West and its Gulf Arab allies, who have thrown their weight behind the opposition, for the unrest in Syria that
rebel sources say has killed 40,000 people.
His government argues that the uprising is led by “terrorists’’ guided from abroad.
If the rebels could not overthrow Assad he said the West might “resort to radical solutions’’.
Syria refuses to acknowledge it possesses chemical arms but has repeatedly said it would not use such weapons on its own
people, though it might against foreign attackers.
Israel and NATO countries say Syria has stocks of various chemical warfare agents at four sites.
The U.S. and NATO, which has agreed to send Patriot missiles to the Turkish border with Syria, have issued strong warnings to
Syria against the use of chemical warfare.
Washington has said that the use of chemical weapons would be a “red line’’ for the U.S.
He said that Assad would continue to fight the opposition in spite of foreign pressure: “We will not concern ourselves with
this psychological war and we will continue to fight terrorism.’’ (Reuters/NAN)