Syria to submit UN resolution to ban WMD in Middle East including Israel's nuclear weapons

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syria again roundly rejected US accusations that it was harboring members of the Iraqi regime on the run from the US-led coalition.

And in response to US allegations that it possesses chemical weapons, Damascus said it would submit a resolution to the UN Security Council calling for the Middle East to be free of weapons of mass destruction.

"Allegations of Syria providing refuge to some symbols of the Iraqi regime are absolutely groundless," said Bussaina Shaaban, director of the ministry's information department, speaking in English.

"Syria never had good relations with the Iraqi regime, and in fact there were many operations done against our citizens by the Iraqi regime in the past, and so these kinds of allegations are absolutely groundless," she added, in a reference to the series of attacks in Syria in the 1980s blamed on Baghdad.

Damascus had been backing Tehran in the vicious 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war that left more than one million people dead.

In a spate of growing accusations, US officials said earlier Wednesday that Baghdad's ambassador to Tunisia, Faruq Hijazi, suspected of playing a key role in a 1993 plot to to assassinate former US president George Bush, had flown to Damascus.

US officials also said "at least a handful" of former members of the Iraqi elite were currently in Syria, but did not offer any specifics.

As for the question of weapons of mass destruction, Shaaban said Damascus would "very soon" submit a draft resolution to the UN Security Council, where it holds a rotating seat and is the only Arab member.

"If the United States and others are worried about mass destruction weapons, chemical, nuclear or biological, passing into the hands of terrorists we would like this to be materialized by a draft resolution," she said.

"Syria has got the approval of the Arab group in the UN and it will submit it to the Security Council very soon, to make the Middle East a zone free of all mass destruction weapons," she added.

Shaaban accused Israel, widely believed to have nuclear weapons, of launching a campaign "in order to harm Syrian-US relations."

Meanwhile, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou told Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara by phone Wednesday that "nobody believes Syria has weapons of mass destruction on its territory."

Papandreou, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, added that US Secretary of State Colin Powell had assured him "there were no belligerent US plans against Syria," the official SANA new agency reported.

The two also agreed that US threats against Syria were "raising tension in the region and undermining the prospect for a just and durable peace," SANA said.

Syria's decision to submit the resolution was likely a bid to bring pressure on Israel. Syria has complained of US "double standards" in ignoring what it says is Israel's undeclared stock of nuclear weapons.

"It is Israel which has a big arsenal of weapons of mass destruction," Syria's UN ambassador, Rostom al-Zoubi, told CNN Tuesday.

Responding to questions on ties with Washington, Shaaban said "dialogue is going on" and that she believed statements from US officials were not "negative in the way that the media tries to present them."

"No the door is not closed; we are conducting discussions. The US ambassador (Theodore Kattouf) is visiting our deputy minister every two days ... everything is going to be discussed," she said.

Powell said Monday Washington was considering implementing economic and diplomatic sanctions against Damascus.

The next day, Washington announced that coalition forces had shut down an oil pipeline between Iraqi and Syria, which was reported to have been supplying large amounts of oil to Syria in violation of UN sanctions.

Shaaban dismissed the move. "We lived without the Iraqi pipeline for twenty years; we could live for another twenty years," she said.

Powell later insisted there were no US plans to attack any other Middle East country or topple its leadership.

In response to Bush's call on Sunday that Syria "must cooperate" with Washington and not give refuge to members ot he Iraqi regime, Shaaban said the Iraq-Syria border was closed "except for medical help that is done through the Red Cross."

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad spoke on the phone with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, telling him Damascus was ready to cooperate in fighting "terrorism" and preserving stability in the Middle East, according to diplomats in Madrid.