{{Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told French daily Le Figaro Monday that the use of nerve gas against targets in rebel-held parts of Syria would have been \u201cillogical\u201d, while warning that an attack on his country could set off a \u201cregional war\u201d.}}<\/p>\n
In excerpts of an interview to be published in full in Tuesday\u2019s edition of the newspaper, Assad challenged French President Fran\u00e7ois Hollande and US President Barack Obama to provide convincing proof that he had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people.<\/p>\n
“Those who make accusations must show evidence,\u201d he told Le Figaro. \u201cWe challenge the United States and France to do this. Obama and Hollande have been incapable of doing this, including for their own people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assad, who has been waging a two-and-a-half-year civil war against a rebel coalition that has claimed more than 100,000 lives, said he would neither deny nor admit that his country possessed such weapons — but insisted it would have been tactically illogical for his forces to use them against the alleged targets.<\/p>\n
Military intervention against his country, he added, would \u201cset off a powder keg\u201d that \u201ceveryone would lose control of once ignited\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cChaos and extremism would ensue,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is a risk of regional war.\u201d<\/p>\n
France, he warned, would become the enemy of the Syrian state: \u201cWhoever contributes financial or military support to the terrorists is an enemy of the Syrian people,” he said, adding: \u201cIf the French state shows itself to be hostile to the Syrian people, that state becomes its enemy.”<\/p>\n
Assad also warned of consequences for France if it chooses this path. \u201cThis hostility will only end when the French state changes its policies,” he said. “There will certainly be negative repercussions for French interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
France24<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told French daily Le Figaro Monday that the use of nerve gas against targets in rebel-held parts of Syria would have been \u201cillogical\u201d, while warning that an attack on his country could set off a \u201cregional war\u201d.}} In excerpts of an interview to be published in full in Tuesday\u2019s edition of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2000048018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-10150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000048018,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10150.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10150.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10150.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10150.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10150.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10150.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000048018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10150"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=10150"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=10150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}