Syria's Chief of Staff said in remarks published on Monday that Washington's ambitions to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were part of an effort to rearrange the Middle East region to U.S. and Israeli interests.
In his first public comments, Hasan Turkmani told Army magazine in comments to be published next month, that Washington was using allegations of terrorism to pressure Arab governments.
"There are security and military alliances fostered by the United States...that now interfere in the domestic affairs of Arab countries and others with the excuse of fighting terrorism," said Turkmani.
"And attempts to rearrange the regional situation, as the United States is now doing with Iraq, under the cover that it possesses weapons of mass destruction," he added.
"The accusation of terrorism has become an assault weapon in the hand of the United States that it uses as slander in the face of those it does not approve of and against countries that it covets control over," said Turkmani.
Turkmani accused Israel of launching a media blitz to paint all Arabs as "terrorist" and "pave the way for strikes against Arab states in sequence starting with Iraq and Palestine and moving on to Syria and Lebanon and others that don't wave the flag of surrender." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
