Syria will welcome arms inspectors

2003-04-14 08:05

Washington - A senior Syrian diplomat said his country was willing to accept international inspections to allay US fears that it has weapons of mass destruction and urged Washington to help rid the entire Middle East - including Israel - of such arms.

"We will not only accept the most rigid inspection regime, we will welcome it heartily," Imad Moustapha, the number two in the Syrian embassy here, told the NBC News programme "Meet the Press."

"Go everywhere, but please to every country in this Middle East. You know very well that Israel is the country that is stockpiling nuclear weapons...Please help us free the Middle East from weapons of mass destruction," he said.

He flatly denied US accusations that Syria was assisting members of President Saddam Hussein's regime, harbouring terrorists or producing weapons of mass destruction.

"It's been a campaign of misinformation and disinformation about Syria since even before the war started. This is just an ongoing series of false accusations," Moustapha told NBC.

He said the United States was using Syria to mount a distraction from the chaos that the US-led military campaign in Iraq had left in its wake.

US must secure border area

He also insisted that no member of Saddam's regime had fled across the border into Syria, and he called on the United States to take responsibility for securing the frontier.

"You have a huge US army in Iraq that has secured Iraqi western borders and you are controlling the situation there. If you have problems, please let the US army deal with these problems," he said.

America accused of provoking Arab world

Moustapha also accused the United States of provoking the Arab world with their choice of retired US general Jay Garner to run Iraq's interim post-war administration, because of his ardent pro-Israeli stance.

"The United States has a population of 270 million people...out of all those people, the person that has been chosen to rule Iraq is closely linked to (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon and has been praising what Israel is doing to the Palestinians," he said

"What about sensitivity towards the feelings of the Arab people? Can't people see or think here in the United States that at least, please, some respect for the dignity of the people?" Moustapha asked.

- AFX