Syrian Vice President Farouk al- Shara on Saturday accused Israel of behind false reports on an earlier air raid, which targeted a Syrian military installation linked to weapons of mass destruction, in an attempt to make pretext to launch aggression against his country.
Those reports were "fabricated" to justify wars in the future and playing on public opinion to mislead it, Shara told reporters at a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Adel Abdel Mahdi.
"Syria does not want war in the near future," he asserted, adding that "everything reported about this raid is wrong and is part of a psychological warfare that will not fool Syria."
The raid was also aimed at lifting the morale of the Israeli military after its failure to defeat the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, an ally of Syria, last summer.
"What Israel needs is to rehabilitate the Israeli mind, only then will a real opportunity for genuine peace be created," he said.
According to Syria's official media, Syrian defense forces opened fire on Israeli aircraft after they flew over northern Syria and dropped ammunition on empty area on Sept. 6, which it said caused no damage or casualty.
But western media has related the Israeli air raid with nuclear cooperation between Syria and Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which was denied by both Damascus and Pyongyang.
Peace talks between Syria and arch-foe Israel, which are still technically at war with each other, foundered in 2000 over the fate of the strategic Golan Heights, occupied by the Jewish state in the 1967 Middle East war.
The United States has said it would invite Syria to an international peace conference this fall to try to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
But Shara said the meeting would not succeed if Israel were not pressured to withdraw from all the occupied Arab land in exchange for peace, including the Golan.
The gathering should be "based on UN resolutions, the Arab ( League) peace initiative, the return of occupied Arab lands and the establishment of a Palestinian state," Shara said.
On Iraq, Shara said "we are serious indeed to cooperate closely with the Iraqi officials in order to overcome all the difficulties ."
Source: Xinhua
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