Bashar al Assad denies use of chemical weapons on his citizens, asks where the evidence is
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rejected claims that he was behind a purported chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb in August, in an interview with U.S. based CBS News on Sunday.
“There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people,” CBS reported Assad as saying in the interview with Charlie Rose.
The Syrian president said there is no conclusive evidence that there had been a chemical attack in the Ghouta area of Damascus on Aug. 21.
“He denied that he had anything to do with the attack,” CBS veteran correspondent Charlie Rose said following the interview with Assad in Syria, AFP reported.
The interview is set to be aired early Monday in the United States.
Assad’s last interview was with France’s Le Figaro newspaper, which ran Sept. 2, just as France was seriously debating whether to support a U.S. call for intervention in Syria.
He issued the same denials.
“It is for those who are making the accusations to provide the proof. We have challenged the United States and France to put forward a single proof. Obama and Hollande have been unable to do so, even to their own people. (…)? I’m not at all suggesting that the Syrian army does or does not possess such weapons. Let’s suppose that our army wishes to use WMD: is it really going to do so in an area where it is actually present and where soldiers have been wounded by these weapons, as the UN inspectors found during their visit to the hospital where they were being treated? Where is the logic in that?”
Assad made no threats if attacked, “Everyone will lose control of the situation when the powder keg explodes. Chaos and extremism will spread. There is a risk of regional war.”
Check out the full interview here