- DAMASCUS -- Syria is entitled
to defend itself by acquiring its own chemical and biological deterrent,
President Bashar Assad said last night as he rejected American and British
demands for concessions on weapons of mass destruction.
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- In his first major statement since Libya's decision last
month to scrap its nuclear and chemical programmes, he came closer than
ever before to admitting that his country possessed stockpiles of WMD.
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- Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Assad said that any deal
to destroy Syria's chemical and biological capability would come about
only if Israel agreed to abandon its undeclared nuclear arsenal.
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- Since the capture of Saddam Hussein and Col Muammar Gaddafi's
decision to dismantle his WMD programme, Mr Assad has risen towards the
top of America's target list.
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- The White House and Downing Street have been waiting
for his response to Col Gaddafi's appeal for other Arab leaders to follow
his example or risk inflicting a "tragedy" on their people.
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- President Assad spoke for more than 90 minutes at his
discreet villa, which he prefers to the grand palace overlooking Damascus
built by his father, the late Hafez Assad.
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- Asked about American and British claims that Syria had
a WMD capability, he stopped short of the categorical denial that has been
his government's stock response until now.
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- Instead, he pointed to the Israelis' recent attack on
alleged Palestinian bases in Syria and the occupation of the Golan Heights
as evidence that Syria needed a deterrent. "We are a country which
is [partly] occupied and from time to time we are exposed to Israeli aggression,"
he said. "It is natural for us to look for means to defend ourselves.
It is not difficult to get most of these weapons anywhere in the world
and they can be obtained at any time."
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- Mr Assad said that Col Gaddafi's surprise decision to
allow international inspectors to supervise the dismantling of WMD programmes
was a "correct step".
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- He called on the international community to support the
proposal that Syria presented to the United Nations last year for removing
all WMD from the Middle East, including Israel's nuclear stockpile.
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- "Unless this applies to all countries, we are wasting
our time."
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- It is the worst kept secret in the Middle East that Damascus
has one of the largest stockpiles of chemical agents in the region.
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- The latest CIA report on weapons of mass destruction
says: "Syria continued to seek CW-related expertise from foreign sources
[this year]. Damascus already held a stockpile of the nerve agent sarin
but apparently tried to develop more toxic and persistent nerve agents.
It is highly probable that Syria also continued to develop an offensive
BW [biological weapon] capability."
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- Mr Assad tempered his refusal to compromise on WMD by
holding out the prospect of joint patrols with America along the Syria-Iraq
border to prevent the passage of arms and fighters.
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- Acknowledging pressure from the US and Britain to crack
down on Palestinian extremists based in Syria, he claimed that their offices
had been closed and their activities curtailed. The groups could no longer
"do anything military from these places. They are closed".
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- But he risked infuriating the West by stepping up his
defence of Palestinian suicide bombers. He said the attacks had become
"a reality we cannot control" and blamed them on "the Israeli
killings, the Israeli occupations".
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- Despite his passionate advocacy of the Palestinian cause
and his use in the past of inflammatory language about Israel and Jews,
he denied hating them. "If you hate, you cannot talk about peace,"
he said.
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- Mr Assad repeated Syria's offer to resume negotiations
with Israel over the occupation of the Golan Heights which were interrupted
when a deal was in sight nearly a decade ago. But he said that an agreement
was impossible as long as Israel insisted on starting negotiations from
scratch rather than picking up where they left off.
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- Tony Blair, speaking on a flight back from Iraq before
news emerged of the Assad interview, repeated his hope that Syria would
follow Libya's example.
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- He said: "We offer Syria the possibility of a partnership
for the future. But it is important that they realise that the terms are
very clear and have been set out by ourselves and the Americans many times.
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- "You can see very clearly with what happened just
before Christmas in respect of Libya that it is important to say to countries
that may have engaged in such programmes: 'Look, there is a different way
of dealing with this.'
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- "It can be dealt with diplomatically if people are
prepared to do so, but it does have to be dealt with."
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
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