The Arab League has refused to accept Syria\'s conditions for signing the peace plan Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad denied responsibility for the killing of thousands of protesters, telling a US reporter he was not in charge of the forces behind the crackdown, the network said Tuesday .
In a rare interview, Assad spoke Monday to ABC News veteran journalist Barbara Walters in a bid to defend himself amid growing global condemnation of the nine-month-old crackdown which the UN says has killed 4,000 people.
In recent reports, international campaign group Avaaz described an upsurge of sectarian violence in Syria\'s Homs, a hotbed of anti-Assad protests. The group early Wednesday reported a standoff in Al-Houla as 14 Sunnis had been abducted from a minibus which was travelling close to an Alawite area and activists said several sectarian killings took place yesterday.
ABC News planned to air the interview on Wednesday but a reporter for the network, seeking US reaction at a State Department briefing, quoted Assad as saying: “I’m president. I don\'t own the country, so they’re not my forces.”
“There’s a difference between having a policy to crack down and between having some mistakes committed by some officials. There is a big difference,” the reporter quoted Assad as saying.
Assad fiercely defended his embattled regime, rejecting allegations his troops were attacking civilians and insisting that most of those killed in nine months of violence in Syria have been his own soldiers and supporters.
Assad was unrepentant in a series of outright rebuttals of the many charges levelled against him by human rights groups, the United Nations, and his own neighbours.
“We don’t kill our people,” he said. “No government in the world kills its people, unless it’s led by a crazy person.”
He accepted only that some members of the armed forces had “gone too far\", but added that punishments had been meted out in those cases. “Every \'brute reaction’ was by an individual, not by an institution, that’s what you have to know,” he said.
In the interview, he directly rejected questions relating to a string of documented atrocities and abuses. “To be frank with you, Barbara, I don’t believe you,” he replied when the interviewer said she had seen pictures of children being arrested.
Of Hamza al-Khateeb, a 13-year-old boy detained after a protest whose body was returned to his parents shot, burned and castrated in scenes filmed and posted online, he said: “No, no, no. It’s not news. I met with his father, the father of that child and he said that he wasn’t tortured as he appeared in the media.”
He dismissed United Nations reports into the crackdown and its warnings of impending civil war, saying: “Who said that the United Nations is a credible institution?\" He reiterated vague promises of reform, but said they could not be rushed.
“We never said we are a democratic country,” he said. “We are moving forward in reforms, especially in the last nine months.
“It takes a long time, it takes a lot of maturity to be a full fledged democracy.”
In a move reminiscent of Libya\'s slain Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Assad claimed there was no reason for remorse. “I did my best to protect the people,” he said. “I cannot feel guilty when you do your best. You feel sorry for the lives that have been lost. But you don’t feel guilty when you don’t kill people. So it’s not about guilty.”
Earlier this week, an ABC news presenter, seeking reaction from the US State Department, quoted Assad as saying: \"I\'m president. I don\'t own the country, so they\'re not my forces.\"
\"There\'s a difference between having a policy to crack down and between having some mistakes committed by some officials. There is a big difference,\" Assad reportedly said.
Reacting to the excerpt, State Department spokesman Mark Toner criticised Assad and said he has had multiple opportunities to end the violence.
“I find it ludicrous that he is attempting to hide behind some sort of shell game (and) claim that he doesn’t exercise authority in his own country,” Toner told the briefing.
“There’s just no indication that he\'s doing anything other than cracking down in the most brutal fashion on a peaceful opposition movement,” Toner said.
Assad’s family has ruled Syria with an iron fist for four decades. Assad\'s brother, Lieutenant Colonel Maher Al-Assad, heads the army\'s Fourth Division which oversees the capital as well as the elite Republican Guard.
Syria has come under growing pressure from the United States, European Union, Arab League and non-Arab Turkey to stop the violence.
The Arab League has threatened to impose new sanctions unless Syria lets in monitors. In a letter late Sunday, Assad’s regime said it will allow monitors but only if conditions are met.
The League has so far refused to agree to the sanctions.
Syria accuses “armed terrorist groups” of fueling the unrest, which comes amid a wave of street protests across the Arab world this year that have toppled authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.
ABC News said that it was Assad’s first interview to US media since Syria launched the crackdown in March.
Walters, 82, is known for interviews that seek to probe high-profile figures’ personal sides. She is a creator of the popular ABC News morning show “The View,” which features a panel of women hosts
In other news, Russia’s Defence Ministry said a navy squadron has set off for the Mediterranean as an Egyptian official said that a US nuclear submarine has passed through the Suez Canal earlier this week heading to the Mediterranean.
Russian news reports quoted the ministry as saying that the squadron was to make a call at the Syrian port of Tartus to replenish supplies. The ministry said the visit had been planned long ago and had no relation to the Syrian crisis, The Associated Press reported.
Moscow has strongly opposed the Western push for international sanctions against Assad’s government for its violent crackdown on protests.
In October, Syrian Assad warned the Middle East “will burn” if the West intervenes in Syria, according to The Associated Press.
Meanwhile, there were reports of a move by a huge number of Syrian tanks from the Maaret al-Numan in Idlib to the borders with Turkey, Al Arabiya reported.
Syrian state news agency SANA said some of those who came over the border were wounded and escaped back to Turkey where they received aid from the Turkish army. The wounded were transported in Turkish military vehicles, SANA said.
Turkey denied the charges on Wednesday and said it would not let its territory be used to launch attacks against other countries.
Relations between Syria and Turkey have disintegrated since Syria began using force to suppress the revolt. Turkey has said a buffer zone may be required on its 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria if the violence causes a mass exodus of Syrians.
Assad still has significant support in Syria despite nearly nine months of unrest. Many Syrians have not taken sides, fearing chaos or sectarian war.