Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has warned of possible reprisal attacks if the United States attacks Syria, saying that if there were military strikes, Americans can "expect every action."
Assad's comments came as part of a television interview with CBS conducted in Damascus in which he also denied involvement in an alleged Aug. 21 attack involving chemical weapons.
He said that if there were U.S. attacks on Syria in response, the United States "should expect everything."
Asked if he was making a threat of a direct military response to any such attack, Assad was vague.
"Not necessarily from the government," he said at one point. "It's not only the government … in this region. You have different parties, you have different factions, you have different ideology."
Assad added in the same interview that any strike against his regime will provide "direct support" an "al-Qaeda offshoot," an apparent reference to militants, linked to the extremist group, who have aligned with the Syrian opposition.
Russia and Syria both urged the United States on Monday to focus on efforts to convene a peace conference and not on military action, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with Syria's foreign minister.
Lavrov said a U.S. military strike on Syria could lead to the spread of terrorism, and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem accused President Barack Obama of backing terrorists, drawing comparisons with the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
China, meanwhile, urged the U.S. to proceed with extreme caution and return to the United Nations to discuss Syria after Washington said it was not seeking Security Council approval for action in response to a chemical weapons attack last month.
The U.S. and France say forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were behind the attack in which more than 1,400 are estimated to have been killed, and that they are considering air strikes to try to deter him from using such weapons again.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has denied that he was behind the attack, and recently said the evidence was not conclusive that there had been such an attack, CBS reported on Sunday on its news program Face the Nation.
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said relevant countries should "think thrice" before acting and exercise "extreme caution."
The U.S. "should return to the United Nations Security Council framework to seek consensus and appropriately handle the Syria issue," Wang told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a telephone call late on Sunday night.
China and the United States should take the lead in upholding the UN charter to "preserve and protect the basic norms of international relations and oppose any use of chemical weapons," Wang said, according to a statement on the Foreign Ministry's website.
The remarks come after Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Barack Obama at a G20 summit in Russia on Friday that a military strike could not solve the problem and that a political solution was the correct way out.
China has repeatedly called for an impartial investigation by UN chemical weapons inspectors into the attack in Syria, and has warned against pre-judging the results. It has also said that whoever used chemical weapons had to be held accountable.
'Turn it over, all of it'
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could avoid a military strike by turning over all his chemical weapons within a week but immediately made clear he was sure that would never happen.
When asked by a reporter whether there was anything Assad's government could do or offer to stop any attack, Kerry said:
"Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it without delay and allow the full and total accounting [of it] but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done."
A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department later said Kerry was speaking rhetorically — making a point about the "impossibility" of co-operation by Assad.
Kerry said the control of chemical weapons in Syria was limited to Assad, Assad's brother Maher and an unnamed general.
Kerry said he was confident of the evidence that the United States and its allies have presented to support their case that Assad's forces used chemical weapons, though he said he understood concerns, given the discord over the 2003 Iraq war.
Speaking at a news briefing in London with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, Kerry said that doing nothing in the face of such evidence would come back to haunt the United States and its allies.
"If you want to send Iran and Hezbollah and Assad a congratulatory message: 'You guys can do what you want,' you'd say: 'Don't do anything.'
"We believe that is dangerous and we will face this down the road in some more significant way if we're not prepared to take … a stand now," Kerry said.
He also stressed the relationship between Britain and the United States was as strong as ever despite the British parliament having decided not to join military action against Syria.
"The relationship between the United States and the U.K. has often been described as special, essential and it has been described thus because it is," Kerry said. "The bond … is bigger than one vote."
Kerry said while in London he had held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas which were "productive and information" but did not give any further details.
UN report due this week
The UN human rights chief said Monday there is little doubt that chemical weapons were used in Syria but she did not specify which of the combatants was suspected of using them.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay spoke two days ahead of the expected update from a UN panel probing for war crimes and other human rights abuses in Syria, including the use of chemical weapons. The 47-nation UN Human Rights Council, which authorized the probe, is likely to consider a resolution on Syria before the end of its session.
"The use of chemical weapons has long been identified as one of the gravest crimes that can be committed, yet their use in Syria seems now to be in little doubt, even if all the circumstances and responsibilities remain to be clarified," Pillay told the Geneva-based council.
UN inspectors are likely to hand in their report later this week while the U.S. Congress debates whether to allow limited strikes on Syria.
French President Francois Hollande, increasingly under pressure at home and among European partners to seek a UN mandate before any military intervention in Syria, suggested on Saturday he could seek a resolution at the Security Council despite previous Russian and Chinese vetoes.
Kerry said the White House is "listening carefully" to Hollande's comments, but that Obama had not made a decision.
Chinese state media said on Monday Obama's "all-guns-blazing campaign to lobby" for armed intervention did not hold up and that a military strike on Syria would be a violation of international law.
"It is high time to let reason prevail over recklessness," the official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary, which reflects official thinking.
Apart from its Security Council veto, China has also been keen to show it is not taking sides and has urged the Syrian government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change.
It has said a transitional government should be formed.
Regime tries to retake village
In Syria, regime troops launched an attack Monday on hills overlooking a Christian-majority village near the capital Damascus, two days after rebel forces captured the ancient community, an activist group said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighters from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra or Nusra Front and the Qalamon Liberation Front still control Maaloula, an ancient village that is home to two of the oldest surviving monasteries in Syria. Rebels captured the village on Saturday.
The battle has thrown a spotlight on the deep-seated fears that many of Syria's religious minorities harbour about the growing role of Islamic extremists on the rebel side in Syria's civil war.
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