Syria appreciates India's stand on Syrian issue: Envoy

Syria highly appreciates India's stand on the Syrian issue and New Delhi is welcome to invest in the West Asian nation's resources, Syria's Ambassador to India Riad Kamel Abbasi said on Monday.

"We highly appreciate India's stand on the Syrian issue," Abbas said at an event here, organised by the Observer Research Foundation think tank, to discuss the situation in Syria.

He said that his country also appreciated India's policy of having good relations with all sides -- the US, Russia, Arab countries and Israel.

He said the developments of 2011 were no Arab Spring but a bigger conspiracy against those countries affected and "especially Syria".

"It was made by America and its fellow Arab nations in the region to destroy Syria and divide Syria for the benefit of American interests and for the benefit of Israel," Abbas said.

Stating that Syria was the only secular Arab country, he said that it was also the only Arab country to oppose a US project in the Middle East.

He said a superpower like the US wanted to control the national resources of Syria after it was discovered that Syria was the richest country in the Middle East with its oil and gas reserves.

He said the 20th century was the "oil century" and was controlled by the US while the 21st century is "gas century" controlled by Russia.

He said that after Syria opposed the US project in the Middle East, Washington put up a plan which saw funding by Qatar and Saudi Arabia and Turkey opening its borders for terrorists to enter Syria.

According to Abbas, the US and its allies had their way in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen, but failed in Syria.

He said that Syria opposed the plan for a pipeline to supply gas from Qatar via Saudi Arabia and Syria to Europe but accepted a plan for such a pipeline to supply gas from Iran, Iraq and Syria to Europe.

The Ambassador said that six blocks of gas and 14 blocks of crude oil have been discovered in Syria and of the 14 blocks, just four blocks can produce more crude oil than the entire production of Qatar.

He said that after Russia and Iran, Syria will supply the world with gas and after Syria, it will be Qatar.

"We want to ask our friendly countries to invest and join us in sharing our national resources. We won't allow Western companies or countries or American companies to come," he stated and added that India was also welcome to invest.

As for the current situation in Syria, Abbas said that the government was on its "final march" against terrorism and that Russian forces will help Syrian forces in eliminating this scourge.

--IANS

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