Syria Today | French PM meets with President Assad in Damascus

French PM meets with President Assad in Damascus

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said he held “frank and direct talks” with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad on human rights during a two-day visit to Syria from February 19 to 20.

“Yesterday I exchanged views with President Assad on human rights; the discussion was frank and direct,” Fillon said. “Our dialogue with the Syrian authorities permits us to open all the subjects on which we have different views.”

While in Damascus Fillon and his delegation also signed a number of economic and cultural agreements with Syria.

Referring to the latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran, he also asked the Syrian government to help prevent Tehran from making decisions which are “dangerous to world peace”. Fillon said he was “worried” about the IAEA’s latest safeguards report on Iran, released on February 18, which suggests the country may be working towards developing a nuclear missile.

“We have read the new report by the IAEA… and it is very worrying,” Fillon said at a press conference in Damascus with Syria’s Prime Minister Mohammed Naji Otri. “We proposed dialogue to Iran for several months and for the moment all the propositions have been turned down. If the situation does not change, we have no other solution but to look into new measures in the coming weeks.”

In recent months the US, France and the UK have been pushing for a fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran because of suspicions it is secretly developing a nuclear arsenal.

Responding to Fillon’s fears, Prime Minister Muhammad Naji Otri reiterated that Tehran was developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes only.

“Nothing justifies the fear over this issue,” Otri said. “We think it’s a right of all people to have nuclear energy for civil purposes.”

The IAEA also released a report on February 18 which said that uranium particles found at Al-Kibar, a site in the Syrian desert bombed by Israel three years ago, suggested the existence of possible nuclear activity. In the report, IAEA Chief Yukiya Amano said samples taken from the facility in June 2008 “indicated the presence of particles of anthropogenic natural uranium” which “points to the possibility of nuclear-related activities at the site”.

Amano also called on Syria to grant IAEA inspectors further access to Al-Kibar, as well as access to three other locations allegedly related to the site. Following a meeting with his Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger on February 20, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Mu’allem reiterated that Syria’s nuclear activities are peaceful.

“We will not allow anything beyond the agreement because Syria does not have a military nuclear programme,” he said. “Syria is not obliged to open its other sites to inspectors.”