ASSAD DENIES USE OF CHEMICAL WEAPON; SAYS NO EVIDENCE

 BY OYEDOTUN QUDUS

Syrian president, interviewed by US broadcaster, denies he was behind a chemical weapons attack in Damascus suburbs.

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, CBS reported. "There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people," CBS on Sunday quoted Assad as saying in an interview conducted by Charlie Rose in Damascus. The US, along with other Western and regional countries, accuse the Assad regime of carrying out a chemical attack in Damascus suburbs on August 21, killing hundreds of people. Speaking on the CBS Sunday morning show Face the Nation, Rose summarised the answers Assad gave in his first interview with an American television network in the last two years . Rose said that the Syrian president did not confirm or deny that the regime has chemical weapons. The US and France are seeking to build an international coalition to launch military strikes against Syria in response to the alleged chemical attack. Member countries of the European Union also blame the Syrian government for the attack said on Saturday that the world should wait for a report from UN weapons inspectors before any US-led military response. In another media report on Sunday, Germany's Bild am Sonntag paper said Syrian government forces may have used chemical weapons without the personal permission of Assad. Syrian brigade and division commanders had been asking the Presidential Palace to allow them to use chemical weapons for the last four-and-a-half months, according to radio messages intercepted by German spies, but permission had always been denied, the paper said. Bild said the radio traffic was intercepted by a German naval reconnaissance vessel, the Oker, sailing close to the Syrian coast.

Source: Agencies