“There Should not Be Any Mass Destruction Weapons”
“We Want the Mediterranean to be a sea of peace and friendship where seagulls fly, ships of amity sail not warplanes of killing and destruction,’’ said the Late President Hafez Al-Assad, at the opening ceremony of the 10th Mediterranean Games in Lattakia in 1987. Thus, Syria has been for decades working for freeing the Mideast region from all Mass Destruction Weapons.
Actually, Syria, whose territories of the Golan and Iskenderun are also for decades under occupation, is the first country in the region to officially call for the freeing of the Middle East from such means of killing and destruction. ”Syria in 2003, as a non-permanent UN Security Council member at that time presented a draft law, a project as to free the Middle East from Mass Destruction Weapons; this Syrian project is still in the UN drawers! Due to the lack of support by the basic States for this project, and in contradiction with what they talk about …!”From His Excellency’s Press Conference with the Finnish President, (October 22, 2009)
With this in mind came the Syrian Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Minister, Walid al-Moallem’s statements yesterday that “We are ready to show sites with chemical arsenals to Russia’s representatives, as well as representatives of other states and the UN,” in translation to the Syrian latent desire as to join the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Hopefully, this Syrian preparedness is to positively encourage other non-signatory of the 1993 signed CWC to do so, particularly Israel, the only state in the region which possesses nukes, and which even didn’t join the 1968 signed Non- Proliferation Treaty, (NPT).
In the global village of today the need is dire for a serious reconsideration for humans’ destruction of the Earth and living creatures. ”We have a clear stance in Syria: we do not wish to see any nuclear bombs in the Middle East Region; there is no need for this. Of course, we also do not want to see the nuclear weapons, which Israel possesses,” From His Excellency’s Interview with the Turkish ‘Hurriyet’ Daily, (November 8, 2009)
”I reiterated Syria’s firm stance as far as the freeing of the Middle East region from Mass Destruction Weapons.” From His Excellency’s Press Conference with the Croatian President, (October 28, 2009). Syria’s stand, as outlined by H.E. President Bashar Al-Assad in an interview with Turkish TV on December 28, 2005, was and is still for freeing the Middle East region from all weapons of mass destruction. We are against any WMD, any weapons of mass destruction, whether chemical or nuclear, as H.E. President Al-Assad reiterated in his CBS interview, and this is but ”our conviction and policy”.
In 2003, we submitted a proposal to the Security Council, when Syria was a temporary member-state to make the Middle East region free of WMDs. This proposal was firstly rejected by the US. If they were anxious about the presence of WMDs, let them approve the Syrian proposal, or to keep dealing with the region in double-standards, may be much more double.
We in Syria do believe, as H.E. President Al-Assad stated on December 12, 2005, in an interview with Russian TV, that there should not be any mass destruction weapons, including nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
Dr. Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim