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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
| Assad criticises US threat of strikes | |
| 2013-09-25 | |
| Syrian President Bashar Al Assad criticised the United States for threatening to attack Syria over its chemical weapons programme, saying it was finding “excuses for war”, China’s state television said on Monday. US President Barack Obama has said he is prepared to attack Syria, even without a UN mandate, if Assad reneges on a US-Russian deal to put Syria’s chemical arms stockpiles under international control. “If the U.S wants to find excuses for war, it will find them as it has never stopped war,” Assad said in an interview with China’s state television, CCTV, in the Syrian capital.
Russia and China have both vetoed Western efforts to impose UN penalties on Assad. But China has also been keen to show it is not taking sides and has urged the Syrian government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change. It has said a transitional government should be formed. Assad said China and Russia would ensure there could be no pretext for military action against Syria, and CCTV’s website quoted him as saying Syria would honour “everything that we have agreed to do”. “And more importantly, I want to say, by submitting the draft to the UN Security Council, or by urging the US and Russia to agree on a deal, the US, France, and Britain are just trying to make themselves winners in a war against a Syria which is their imaginary enemy.” | |
| Posted by:Steve White |