Mixed reception for Assad

A NOISY protest took place outside Downing Street yesterday as British Prime Minister Tony Blair held talks with Syrian president Bashar Assad.

The crowd of hundreds, kept behind barriers by police, was split almost equally between supporters of Mr Assad and those who disapprove of the red carpet treatment he is receiving during his four-day visit to Britain.

There was banging of pots and pans and chanting as the Syrian leader and his wife pulled into Downing Street to be met by Mr Blair and other British ministers.

One side of the crowd waved banners declaring “Blair: don’t take tea with terrorists” and “Don’t send our troops to fight abroad when you entertain terrorists at home”.

The other half voiced their support for the reforms Mr Assad is making in his country and also his condemnation of war on Iraq.

Gili Yoshpe, an Israeli living in North London, said: “On the one hand Britain is fighting terrorism and on the other hand Blair is having tea with one of the biggest terrorists in the world.

“He is the number one terrorist, perhaps only behind Bin Laden.”

Spencer Weisbard, from Finchley, north London, said: “This is a protest against the way in which the Syrian president is being honoured, not only by the British government but by the world generally.

“Assad is a supporter of terrorist groups. We are sad that he is being honoured in this way.

“The many terrorist organisations all have pockets in Syria, they are trained in the Lebanon which is Syrian occupied territory.”

On the other side of the crowd Muna Nashashibi, from Knightsbridge, central London, said she believed

Mr Assad was doing a lot of good work to reform his country.

The Syrian, who now lives in Britain, said: “We are here to show support for our president.

“We are here to support peace and we are against ethnic cleansing which is happening in Palestine.”

Meanwhile, Mr Blair yesterday said Iraq could still avoid war but British officials were quoted as saying they were “very disappointed” by Baghdad’s declaration of its arms programmes.

Iraqi opposition figures, meeting in London, haggled over plans for a possible interim leadership of their country should President Saddam Hussein be toppled. They have already agreed on a political blueprint calling for a federal, tolerant Iraq.

In Iraq, UN arms teams set out again for suspect sites after the country’s oil minister said it would co-operate fully with the renewed inspection effort to disprove US and British charges that it still possesses weapons of mass destruction.

In Turkey, a senior military official said Ankara had deployed troops and engineers near its border with northern Iraq to prepare for any US-led attack on Baghdad.

“The reason for the deployments is ensuring that the Turkish military is ready in all ways for the possibility of an Iraq operation,” he said.

The official gave no figures but local sources put it at 10,000-15,000 troops.

Writing in the Financial Times, Blair argued that Britain must continue preparing for military action so that Saddam realised the threat against him was serious.

Blair’s comments appeared ahead of his meeting with Mr Assad, who was expected to warn him that a US-led war on Iraq would have grave consequences for the whole Middle East.

“Sometimes the only way of avoiding war is to be clear that you are prepared to use force,” Blair wrote.