Assad promises to destroy chemical arms
Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has pledged to destroy his stockpile of chemical arms but warns it will take a year to do so.
“I think it’s a very complicated operation, technically. And it needs a lot of money, about a billion,” Assad said in an interview with Fox News broadcast on Wednesday.
“So it depends, you have to ask the experts what they mean by quickly. It has a certain schedule. It needs a year, or maybe a little bit more.”
Assad insists his decision to destroy his stockpiles of chemical weapons was not forced upon him by the threat of US strikes.
“Yeah, there’s a misunderstanding that we agreed with this agreement because of the Americans,” he said.
You might like
“Actually, if you go back before the G20, before the proposal, the Russians, it wasn’t about handing over the chemical arsenal,” he said, referring to a Russian offer to oversee his disarmament.
“It was about attacking Syria in order not to use the arsenal again,” he said, in reference to US President Barack Obama’s call for a punitive strike against his regime.
“So it’s not about the threat. Syria never obey any threat. We actually responded to the Russian initiative and to our needs and to our conviction,” he insisted.
“So whether they have Chapter 7 or don’t have Chapter 7, this is politics between the great countries,” he said, referring to a UN rule that would have to be invoked to justify international action.
Syria’s ally Russia has opposed any UN Security Council resolution that would permit a Chapter 7 enforcement action in order to compel Damascus to hand over its chemical arms.
Want to see more stories from InDaily SA in your Google search results?
- Click here to set InDaily SA as a preferred source.
- Tick the box next to "InDaily SA". That's it.
