A defiant President Bashar Assad said Thursday he wouldn’t bow to U.S. demands to expel Palestinian militant groups and criticized new U.S. sanctions against Syria, disputing Bush administration charges that his country has weapons of mass destruction and is allowing foreign fighters to move across the border into Iraq. In a meeting of about 90 minutes with American editors, Assad offered no fresh proposals to spur talks on the stalled Middle East peace process – including Syrian attempts to regain the Golan Heights – saying the United States has made it clear that its No. 1 priority is Iraq and not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Still, Assad recognizes that he will eventually need the United States’ help in any future negotiations to win back the territory Syria lost to Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. Full Story
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