Assad: Syria To Submit Chemical Weapons Data One Month After Signing Convention
By BASSEM MROUE 09/12/13 07:12 PM ET
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BEIRUT — Syrian President Bashar Assad publicly agreed
Thursday to a Russian plan to secure and destroy his chemical weapons, but said
the proposal would work only if the U.S. halts threats of military
action.
Assad also said his government will start submitting data
on its chemical weapons stockpile a month after signing the convention banning
such weapons.
Syria's U.N. ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told reporters
Thursday that he presented Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with "the instrument of
accession" to the Chemical Weapons Convention making his country a full member
of the treaty banning the use of chemical weapons.
U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said that while
secretary-general welcomes the development, Syria will only become a member 30
days after its instrument of accession is deposited and that the documentation
is still being studied.
American officials, meeting with their Russian counterparts
in Geneva, insisted on a speedier Syrian accounting of their
stockpiles.
Assad's remarks to Russia's state Rossiya 24 news channel
were his first since the Russian plan was announced Monday as a way to avert a
potential U.S. military strike in response to the Aug. 21 chemical weapons
attack that killed hundreds near Damascus.
He said that Syria is relinquishing control over its
chemical weapons because of Russia.
"We agreed to put Syria's chemical weapons under
international supervision in response to Russia's request and not because of
American threats," Assad said.
"In my view, the agreement will begin to take effect a
month after its signing, and Syria will begin turning over to international
organizations data about its chemical weapons," Assad added. He said this is
"standard procedure" and that Syria will stick to
it.
"There is nothing standard about this process," U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry retorted in Geneva, because Assad has used his
chemical weapons. "The words of the Syrian regime in our judgment are simply not
enough."
Syria had long rejected joining the Chemical Weapons
Convention, which requires all parties to the treaty to declare and destroy
whatever chemical weapons they may possess.
Assad said the Russian deal was a two-sided process. "We
are counting, first of all, on the United States stop conducting the policy of
threats regarding Syria," he said.
Syria's Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil also suggested on
Thursday that the Russian proposal will succeed only if the United States and
its allies pledge not to attack Syria in the
future.
"We want a pledge that neither it (the U.S.) nor anyone
else will launch an aggression against Syria," Jamil told The Associated Press
in Damascus.
But Kerry cautioned that a U.S. military strike could occur
if Assad doesn't agree to dismantle his chemical arsenal properly. "There ought
to be consequences if it doesn't take place," he
said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, however, said the
dismantling "will make unnecessary any strike against the Syrian Arab
Republic."
Syria's top rebel commander, meanwhile, slammed the Russian
proposal, calling for Assad to be put on trial for allegedly ordering the Aug.
21 attack. Many rebels had held out hopes that U.S.-led punitive strikes on
Assad's forces would help tip the scales in their favor in Syria's civil war,
which has claimed over 100,000 lives so far.
Gen. Salim Idris' statement was broadcast on pan-Arab
satellite channels hours before talks in Geneva between Kerry and Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
"We call upon the international community, not only to
withdraw the chemical weapons that were the tool of the crime, but to hold
accountable those who committed the crime in front of the International Criminal
Court," Idris said.
He added that the Free Syrian Army "categorically rejects
the Russian initiative" as falling short of the expectations of rebel
fighters.
The U.S. accuses Assad's government of being behind the
attack in the suburb of Ghouta. The U.S. says the attack killed 1,429 people;
other estimates of the deaths are lower.
Assad has denied responsibility and accuses U.S. officials
of spreading lies without providing evidence.
In the interview Thursday, he charged that the Aug. 21
chemical weapons attack was a "U.S.-organized
provocation."
"The threats (of a military strike) are based on a
provocation. It was arranged with the use of chemical weapons in the Damascus
suburb of Ghouta," he said.
In Geneva, Kerry and a team of U.S. experts will have at
least two days of meetings with their Russian counterparts. The Americans hope
to emerge with an outline of how some 1,000 tons of chemical weapons stocks and
precursor materials as well as potential delivery systems can be safely
inventoried and isolated under international control in an active war zone and
then destroyed.
In Washington, officials said the CIA has been delivering
light machine guns and other small arms to Syrian rebels for several weeks,
following President Barack Obama's decision to arm the
rebels.
The agency also has arranged for the Syrian opposition to
receive anti-tank weapons like rocket-propelled grenades through a third party,
presumably one of the Gulf countries that has been arming the rebels, a senior
U.S. intelligence official and two former intelligence officials said Thursday.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss
the classified program publicly.
Loay al-Mikdad, a Free Syrian Army spokesman, told the AP
that they have not received any weapons from the U.S. although they expect some
in the near future.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
rebels fighting Assad's forces on Thursday captured the village of Imm al-Lokas
in the southern region of Quneitra near Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan
Heights.
The Britain-based activist group added that rebels also
captured several army posts in the area in heavy fighting that caused casualties
on both sides.
It also said that in the northeastern province of Hassakeh,
clashes pitting Kurdish fighters against members of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra
Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in the past two days killed
13 Kurdish gunmen and 35 militants.
The two sides have been fighting in northern Syria for
months in battles that left scores of people dead on both
sides.
Syrian state media said government troops advanced in the
predominantly Christian village of Maaloula near Damascus, capturing the main
square as well as the Mar Takla convent where several nuns were
staying.
A resident in the village told the AP that troops were
trying to capture a rebel-held hotel on a hill overlooking the area. The man,
who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said most of the
fighting Thursday was taking place in the western part of the
village.
Government troops are trying to flush out rebel units,
including two linked to al-Qaida, from the hilltop enclave the rebels broke into
last week.
Most of the village's 3,300 residents have fled to safer
parts of the country, although some have remained, hunkering down in their
homes, activists said.
Maaloula, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of
Damascus, had until recently been firmly in the regime's grip despite being
surrounded by rebel-held territory. The village was a major tourist attraction
before the civil war. Some of its residents still speak a version of Aramaic, a
biblical language believed to have been used by
Jesus.
___
Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus and Jim
Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.
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