Assad: “We are a nation at war”

Assad: West fights imaginary enemy in Syria

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has criticized the United States, France and Britain for submitting an anti-Syrian draft resolution to the UN Security Council in a bid to fight “their imaginary enemy.”
Envoys from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China – met last Thursday for a third straight day to discuss a draft resolution which opens the way for US military ambitions against Syria and further sanctions if they are not happy with results of the agreement.
In an interview with China’s state television CCTV Assad said he is not concerned by the draft resolution, rather he was critic of continued hostility at the side of these countries despite Syria’s transparent cooperation with the international community.
“I am not concerned. Since its independence, Syria has been committed to all the treaties it has signed. We will honor 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.”
Russia and the United States forged the deal to put Syria’s chemical arms stockpiles under international control to avert US controversial plans to attack Syria.
Under the US-Russian deal, Syria must account for its chemical weapons stockpiles within a week and see them destroyed by the middle of next year.
Russia has strongly opposed the move.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on Saturday Syria had handed over information about its chemical weapons arsenal, meeting the first deadline of the disarmament operation.
However Assad warned that the chemical weapons stockpile could be threatened by militants who try to tarnish Syria’s efforts over the agreement so that they could open the way for military action against Syria.
“We know that these terrorists are obeying the orders of other countries and these countries do drive these terrorists to commit acts that could get the Syrian government blamed for hindering this agreement.”
Asked whether Syria had loads of chemical weapons, Assad said, “Syria has been manufacturing chemical weapons for decades so it’s normal for there to be large quantities in the country.
“We are a nation at war, we’ve got territories that have been occupied for more than 40 years, but in any case, the Syrian army is trained to fight using conventional weapons.”
He said the chemical weapons were stored “under special conditions to prevent any terrorist or other destructive forces from tampering with them, that is, destructive forces that could come from other countries.”