Syria not to fulfill agreement until US stops threatening
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E-mail Xinhua, September 13, 2013
Syria will not fulfill agreement on chemical weapons control until the U.S. stops threatening it, President Bashar al-Assad said Thursday.
Only when Washington proves to Damascus its sincere intention of securing stability in the Middle East, stops making threats against Syria, and suspends arming terrorists, then will it consider completing necessary processes which are feasible and acceptable for Syria, Assad said in an interview with Russian news channel Rossiya 24.
The decision to place chemical weapons under international control was not made as a result of threats from the United States, he stressed.
"What really drove us to do that was the proposal made by Russia and our negotiations with Russia," he insisted, adding Syria will send documents regarding an agreement on chemical weapons to the Unite Nations in the next few days.
The agreement to put Syrian chemical weapons under international regulation will take effect one month after the signing of Chemical Weapons Convention. Following that, Syria will start providing information on its chemical weapons arsenals to international organizations, Assad said.
Still, Damascus will not follow all the rules unilaterally, since it is a bilateral process, said the Syrian president, warning that a war against Syria will spread turmoil throughout the region.
"I think any war against Syria will become a war that will destroy the entire region and will cause instability in the Middle East for decades. The future generations will be faced with it," he said.
On Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama appeared to embrace the Russian proposal to put Syrian chemical weapons under international control after weeks of lobbying for a military strike against Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons.
In an article carried by the New York Times on Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin stressed that under international law, the use of military force is permitted only in self-defense or by a decision of the UN Security Council.
