BEIRUT - Syria’s president vowed Sunday to abide by the United Nations resolution calling for the country’s chemical-weapons stockpile to be destroyed.
Speaking to Italy’s RAI News 24 TV, President Bashar Assad said his government approved of the U.N. Security Council plan to eliminate Syria’s chemical-weapons program and also agreed to join the international convention that outlaws such arms.
“Of course we have to comply. This is our history to comply with every treaty we sign,” he said in a video of the interview posted on the Syrian presidency’s official Facebook page. “According to every chapter in the agreement, we don’t have any reservation.”
The U.N. resolution, which passed unanimously Friday, aims to strip the Assad regime of its estimated 1,000-ton chemical arsenal by mid-2014, which experts say are distributed between 50 and 70 sites. It also calls for consequences if Syria fails to comply, though the council would have to pass another resolution to impose any penalties.
For the first time, the Security Council also endorsed a road map for a political transition in Syria adopted by key nations in June 2012, and it called for an international peace conference to be convened “as soon as possible” to implement it.
In the interview, Assad brushed aside a question about whether he would personally attend talks in Geneva, saying the framework of the negotiations is still unclear. He said he is willing to hold a dialogue with the political opposition to try to resolve the crisis, but not with armed groups trying to overthrow his government.
“Regarding the militants,” he said, “if they give in their arms, we’ll be ready to discuss with them anything like with any other citizen.
“We cannot discuss with al-Qaida offshoots and organizations that are affiliated with al-Qaida,” he added. “We cannot negotiate with the people who ask for foreign intervention and military intervention in Syria.”
He also welcomed the recent thaw in relations between the U.S. and Iran, a close ally of Syria that has provided it with weapons and cash to help Assad weather the war.
“If the Americans are, let’s say, honest about this rapprochement, I think the results will be positive regarding the different issues, not just the Syrian crisis,” he said.
The agreement to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons was prompted by the deadly poison gas attack Aug. 21 near Damascus. The U.S. blamed the Assad regime and threatened to launch punitive missile strikes, while the Syrian government accused the rebels of being behind the attack.
Also Sunday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said military action against neighboring Syria should be an option only if diplomatic efforts fail to spur Assad to surrender his chemical weapons.
“Military action is the last resort,” Gul said on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS. “But what we insisted, there should be a comprehensive political strategy first.”
The administration of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has backed the Syrian rebels in their efforts to topple Assad.
The two-year civil war between forces loyal to Assad and Syrian rebels has taken at least 100,000 lives and created more than 1.5 million refugees, according to U.N. estimates. Many of those fled across the 560-mile Turkish border and have been sheltered by the Turks.
The Syrian conflict “is not the problem of Turkey, first of all, but we are the neighbor,”Gul said. “What’s happening in Syria is having immediate consequences on Turkey.”
Inside Syria on Sunday, more than 40 rebel brigades around Damascus announced that they were banding together to form a new group called the Jaish al-Islam under the leadership of the head of one of the most powerful factions,Liwa al-Islam.
Charles Lister, an analyst with IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre in Britain, said the move represents an effort by Syria’s strongest Islamist rebel brigades to consolidate on a regional and possibly national basis.
The Damascus factions already cooperate on the ground, and it is unclear what practical effect their consolidation will have in the fight against Assad, Lister said.
But the unification effort, coupled with the decision last week by Liwa al-Islam and nearly a dozen other rebel organizations to break with the main opposition group in exile, is seen as another blow to the Western-backed political opposition.
INSPECTORS’ PLAN OF ACTION
The inspectors who will oversee Syria’s destruction of its chemical weapons said Sunday that their first priority is to help the country scrap its ability to manufacture such arms by a Nov. 1 deadline.
They said that may include smashing mixing equipment with sledgehammers, blowing up delivery missiles, driving tanks over empty shells or filling them with concrete, and running machines without lubricant so they seize up and become inoperable.
On Sunday, inspectors met with members of the media in The Hague to explain their current plan of action, which is to include an initial group of 20 leaving for Syria today.
The organization allowed two inspectors to speak on condition of anonymity out of concern for their safety amid Syria’s civil war; both are veteran members of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Spokesman Michael Luhan said the men “are going to be deeply involved in Syria.”
Timothee Germain, a researcher at the Center for International Security and Arms Control in Paris, who is not involved with the organization’s project, said that in the early phases of Syria’s civil war, chemical weapons were consolidated into a small number of sites to keep them from falling into the hands of rebels. But when the prospect of a U.S. military strike emerged, the weapons may have been redistributed over a larger number of sites to preserve them.
He added that he is skeptical the current timeline canbe achieved. “From a technical standpoint, it’s really a longshot,” he said.
The investigators said members of the initial group of 20 will meet with counterparts from Syria’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday and begin planning. A week later, their mission will be expanded to a larger number of investigators who will arrive in waves and begin visiting sites and disabling equipment. At the same time, they will be examining sites for their suitability as places to eventually destroy chemicals and ready-to-fire weapons, which is usually done by incineration.
Protection for organization staff members will be provided primarily by the Syrian government, with support from the U.N., which has a longstanding working relationship with the organization and lines of communication open with rebel groups.
One inspector said access to weapons sites in or near rebel-held territory would be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, with the U.N. possibly helping negotiate safe passage. “It may be that we are not in a position to go to some of these places,” he said. “Our inspectors are all volunteers. This is not a mission that will be carried out come what may.”
After the initial phase of destroying Syria’s ability to manufacture weapons, the actual destruction phase will take far longer and be more expensive, the second expert said. He added that “at this stage there is no reason to doubt Syria’s commitment”to destroying its weapons, adding that its disclosure was voluntary and credible.
Information for this article was contributed by Ryan Lucas, Yasmine Saker and Toby Sterling of The Associated Press; and by Jeff Kearns of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/30/2013