DAMASCUS, April 16: Syria on Wednesday again roundly rejected US accusations that it was harbouring members of the Iraqi regime on the run from the US-led coalition.

And in response to US allegations that it possesses chemical weapons, Damascus said it would submit a resolution to the UN Security Council calling for the Middle East to be free of weapons of mass destruction.

“Allegations of Syria providing refuge to some symbols of the Iraqi regime are absolutely groundless,” said Bussaina Shaaban, director of the ministry’s information department, speaking in English.

“Syria never had good relations with the Iraqi regime, and in fact there were many operations done against our citizens by the Iraqi regime in the past, and so these kinds of allegations are absolutely groundless,” she added, in a reference to the series of attacks in Syria in the 1980s blamed on Baghdad.

Damascus had been backing Tehran in the vicious 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war that left more than one million people dead.

US officials also said “at least a handful” of former members of the Iraqi elite were currently in Syria, but did not offer any specifics.

Meanwhile,, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou told Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara by phone on Wednesday that “nobody believes Syria has weapons of mass destruction on its territory.”

Mr Papandreou, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, added that US Secretary of State Colin Powell had assured him “there were no belligerent US plans against Syria,” the official SANA new agency reported.

Responding to questions on ties with Washington, Ms Shaaban said “dialogue is going on” and that she believed statements from US officials were not “negative in the way that the media tries to present them.”

“No the door is not closed; we are conducting discussions. The US ambassador (Theodore Kattouf) is visiting our deputy minister every two days ... everything is going to be discussed,” she said.

Mr Powell said Monday Washington was considering implementing economic and diplomatic sanctions against Damascus.

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad spoke on the phone with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, telling him Damascus was ready to cooperate in fighting “terrorism” and preserving stability in the Middle East, according to diplomats in Madrid. —AFP