Syrian president says ‘no evidence’ of chemical attack

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has denied that he was behind a chemical weapons attack on the Syrian people and said evidence was not conclusive that there had been such an attack.

“There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people,” CBS reported Assad said in an interview conducted in Damascus.

The full interview will air on the CBS network and PBS’s Charlie Rose show tomorrow. Mr Rose said he met with Mr Assad in Damascus.

Mr Assad spoke as the Obama administration was pressing its case in the United States for congressional authorisation of a US strike against Syria in response to the August 21st sarin gas attack that Washington said killed more than 1,400 Syrians, including several hundred children.

The Obama administration has accused Mr Assad’s forces of carrying out the attack. Mr Assad has blamed the rebels.

Passage by Congress of the authorisation for use of force is by no means certain. Votes are expected this week.

Mr Rose said the Syrian president would neither confirm nor deny that Syria had chemical weapons, but if they did they would be under centralised control. The United States should produce evidence of his involvement, if it has the evidence, Mr Rose reported Mr Assad said.

Mr Assad warned, the CBS interviewer said, that if there was a military strike by the United States, there would be retaliation by those aligned with Syria.

Mr Rose said he raised the question of whether Mr Assad feared the attack might degrade the Syrian military and tip the balance in the 2-1/2-year-old civil war, and was told by Mr Assad that he was very concerned about that.

He had a message for the American people that they should not get involved in another Middle Eastern conflict.(Reuters)