Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reasserts compliance with UN resolution

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has stressed his commitment to the UN resolution on elimination of chemical weapons in Syria even as a prominent figure of the country's domestic opposition Sunday hailed the resolution.

Reiterating that he was committed to adhere by the resolution, Assad vowed to stick to political solution to halt the violence in the strife-torn country, Xinhua reported citing state-run SANA news agency.

Commenting on the recent UN Security Council resolution on Syria's chemical weapons, Assad said, "Actually, we joined the international agreement for preventing the use and acquirement of chemical weapons before that resolution came to light... of course we have to comply; this is our history: to comply with every treaty we sign."

Amid risks of escalation of Syrian conflicts, the UN Security Council voted unanimously Friday to adopt a resolution aimed at ridding Syria of chemical weapons, bringing a settlement to the 30-month-old Syrian crisis back within the UN framework.

The Syrian government will implement "according to every chapter in the agreement”.

“We don't have any reservations. That's why we decided to join the agreement," Assad was quoted by SANA as saying in an interview with Italian Rai News 24 TV.

Under the legally binding resolution which is based on a deal between Washington and Moscow, the Syrian government will abandon its chemical weapons stockpile and give experts unfettered access to monitor its destruction by mid-2014, to avoid US military attacks.

"The main part of the Russian initiative is based on our will to do so. So, it's not the resolution. Actually, it's about our will," he added. Enditem

Meanwhile, a prominent figure of Syria's domestic opposition Sunday hailed the UN Security Council resolution on chemical weapons, saying it prevented a US military strike that could spark a broader regional war.

The UN Security Council resolution would help remove the chemical weapons from the conflict in Syria and thus could save more lives, said Safwan Akkasheh, a prominent figure in the National Coordination Body, a group which advocates peaceful political transition in Syria.

This resolution would decrease the number of Syrian victims and it also “spares us a foreign military aggression”, and saved the region from a wide-scale regional war, he told Xinhua in an interview.

Regarding the UN calls for holding the international conference on Syria in Geneva in mid-November, Akkasheh commented that the international community has been convinced that there is no military solution to the current crisis in Syria.

"We think that there is no military solution to the crisis and our destiny is the political solution and the sole gate before the political solution is the Geneva conference... so all political and honourable Syrian parties must head toward this conference and work to make it successful," he added.

Amid risks of escalation in the Syrian conflict, the UN Security Council voted unanimously Friday to adopt a resolution aimed at ridding Syria of chemical weapons, and bringing a settlement to the 30-month-old Syrian crisis back within the UN framework.

Under the legally binding resolution, which is based on a deal between Washington and Moscow, the Syrian government will abandon its chemical weapons stockpile and give experts unfettered access to monitor its destruction by mid-2014 to avoid US military attacks.