Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara said his government was willing to sign a treaty making the entire Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, an Australian broadcaster reported on Wednesday. In an interview with the Australian government-owned Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), Shara vigorously denied U.S. allegations that Syria had chemical weapons or had allowed Iraq to hide banned weapons on its soil during the Iraq war. "The Syrian government is ready to sign a treaty under U.N. supervision to make the whole Middle East a zone free from all mass destruction weapons, nuclear, chemical and biological," he told SBS in an interview in Damascus.

Since the fall of the government of President Saddam Hussein after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Washington has begun to turn its rhetorical guns on Damascus, accusing Syria of harboring Saddam's allies and of developing chemical weapons.

Arab diplomats at the United Nations said U.S. ally Israel was the only country in the Middle East with weapons of mass destruction and added they would seek a U.N. Security Council resolution declaring the region free of such deadly arms.

Israel is believed to have around 200 nuclear warheads not subject to any international monitoring regime.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Tuesday the United States favored a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction but linked any possible inspection of Israel's arsenal to peace with Syria and Lebanon.

"It is better for the Americans, for the Israelis, for every citizen on earth, especially in the Middle East, and it is good for the American forces in Iraq, to see that the whole Middle East is a zone free from all mass destruction weapons," Shara said.

"Also it is very useful to see this taking place because in this case no terrorist, as the Americans say and some Europeans say, no terrorists can have these mass destruction weapons with them."

Shara denied Syria, a staunch opponent of the U.S. war on Iraq, had hidden any Iraqi weapons.

"If Saddam Hussein had mass destruction weapons for so many years, as they say, he would keep them for the war," he said.

"Why should they smuggle or send them outside the country during the war?"

PHOTO CAPTION

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara speaks during a news confernce with his French counterpart Dominique de Villepin (not pictured) in Damascus April 12, 2003. Al-Shara told reporters on Saturday U.S. accusations that Damascus had helped Saddam Hussein's Iraq were baseless. Senior figures in U.S. President George W. Bush's administration have accused Syria in recent weeks of providing military help to Saddam. REUTERS / Khaled al-Hariri