The head of the Arab League Amr Moussa has dismissed as "ridiculous" Israeli claims that Syria was hiding Iraqi biological and chemical weapons and instead accused the Jewish state of harbouring weapons of mass destruction itself.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Tuesday Israel suspected Baghdad was transferring banned weapons to Syria to hide them from United Nations weapons inspectors. Syria rejected the claims as baseless.
"This is ridiculous. The Security Council resolutions that international inspectors and the United Nations are working to implement are concerned with Iraq only," Moussa told reporters at the 22-member League's Cairo headquarters.
"Before we talk about any other country, Israel should be inspected...The whole region needs inspections, and primarily Israel, which has weapons of mass destruction."
Israel is widely believed to have about 300 nuclear warheads but its policy is never to discuss the issue. Sharon, in an interview with Israel's Channel Two television, said: "What we believe, and I say that we have not yet confirmed it conclusively, is that weapons he (Iraqi President Saddam Hussein) wants to hide, chemical and biological weapons, have indeed been sent to Syria."
He gave no evidence to support the allegation. U.N. weapons inspectors returned to Iraq last month after a four-year hiatus to resume a hunt for banned weapons of mass destruction, which Iraq denies possessing.
The United States has threatened to disarm Iraq by force if it does not obey U.N. resolutions.