Taking such long time in wiping out Syria’s chemical stockpile will give Assad the golden opportunity to delay and mislead.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has agreed to wipe out Syria’s chemical weapons but he said it would take at least a year to do so and would cost one billion dollar.
“I think it’s a very complicated operation, technically. And it needs a lot of money, about a billion. So it depends, you have to ask the experts what they mean by quickly. It has a certain schedule. It needs a year, or maybe a little bit more,” he told media.
In an interview, Assad claimed that Syria was not gripped by civil war but was the sufferer of infiltration by foreign- backed al-Qaeda fighters. He remained adamant that his forces are not been behind an August 21 gas attack on the Damascus suburbs, which left hundreds of civilians dead, but on the other hand promised to give away his lethal arsenal.
After last month’s salvo of sarin-loaded rockets, which the Western countries accept was undoubtedly launched by the Assad regime, US President Barack Obama had christened for US-led retaliatory military strikes.
It took two and a half years for the President to realise that global intervention was required into the matter.
This call by Obama communicated that Syrians killed Syrians. So now we must kill Syrians to send them a message not to kill Syrians.
However, pressed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the US agreed to put on hold the military strike, whereas Russia and the international community devised the disarmament plan.
Assad repeated his promise to oblige, but remained firm that he had not been forced to do so in wake of the threats of US action.
When questioned as to why he used force to suppress a popular revolt and set off a two-and-a-half year war that has claimed 110,000 lives, Assad said Syria was a victim of terrorism. It’s a new kind of war, in which Islamist guerrillas from more than 80 countries had joined the fight.
Assad confessed that at the start of revolution there were non-jihadist rebels, but alleged that since the end of 2012, Islamic fanatics had gained a majority.
While Assad chased his media defence, the five UN Security Council powers held fresh talks on a decree supporting the Russia-US plan to eliminate the chemical weapons.
Reportedly, UN envoys from the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China held two hours of talks at the US mission. One of the UN envoy said “there is no agreement yet, there will be more negotiations.”
The disarmament plan will face its first test on Saturday, the one-week time limit declared by Moscow and Washington for Assad to provide an accounting of his chemical stockpile.
However, the on ground situation became more difficult and unsafe, as — according to residents — an Al-Qaeda front group raided a Syrian border town.
This development in Azaz came in the midst of growing reports of fighting in northern Syria between ISIS and non-jihadist rebels struggling to bring down Assad’s regime.
While Russia has backed Assad’s say that the rebels were behind the sarin gas attacks, White House has out rightly rejects that claim.
Nonetheless, taking such long time in wiping out Syria’s chemical stockpile will give Assad the golden opportunity to delay and mislead. It will give the Syrian President a permit to continue with the massacre of his own people.
How many more people will have to lose their life for the world to make a decision that now is the time to oust this homicidal regime or is it that what the Washington, Europe and Moscow are really saying is that Assad can keep on slaughtering his own people, only till he doesn’t gas them to death?
