DAMASCUS (AFP) — Syrian Vice President Faruq al-Shara said on Saturday that a recent Israeli air raid on what is thought to be a Syrian military installation was meant to provide justification for future aggression on the country.
"Those who continue to talk about this raid and to invent inaccurate details (about it), are aiming to justify a future aggression" againt Syria, Shara said at a press conference with his visiting Iraqi counterpart, Adel Abdel Mahdi.
"They are manipulating public opinion to convince it that (Israel) does not want war. They are lying about that," he added.
Shara went on to denounce "Arab or international parties that write about things that did not happen and who claim North Koreans or others were killed" in the September 6 raid.
"Anyone who says that is wrong and is trying to conduct psychological warfare against Syria, which will not be tricked. Certain people in Israel are hoping that through this they can repair the beating given to the Israeli army by the Lebanese resistance."
That was a reference to last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah, in which the Jewish state failed in its objective to neutralise the Lebanese Shiite Muslim movement, backed by allies Syria and Iran.
Syria said its air defences opened fire on Israeli warplanes on September 6 after they violated its airspace, ratcheting up the tension between the neighbouring foes.
A Syrian cabinet minister warned that the nation's leadership was considering its response to the Israeli "aggression" while in Israel the military declined any comment.
Amid the Israeli blackout, most of the speculation on the raid has come from foreign media. One scenario has it that Israel bombed a suspected nuclear facility in its northern neighbour that was allegedly being built with the help of North Korea.
Both Damascus and Pyongyang have roundly denied the reports.
On Saturday, a senior Israeli defence official said "there is no danger of war."
Amos Gilad, a political advisor to the defence ministry and a reserve major general, said the army's priority on the occupied Golan Heights was "to return to full operational capacity in order to prepare for any contingency in the future".
However, he said, "there is no danger of direct confrontation between Israel and Syria because the two countries are not interested."
Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed the territory. Disputes over the terms of its eventual return to Syria have been key to the failure of now-frozen peace negotiations between the two countries.
Gilad also dismissed recent air alerts which have forced Israel to scramble jets as "isolated incidents of no consequence because the two countries don't want war".
Israeli fighters scrambled on Thursday for the third time in a week after Syrian helicopters were detected flying over Syrian territory near the armistice line, military sources said.
Turning to the planned November Middle East peace meeting being hosted by the United States, and to which Syria is expected to be invited, Shara said he hoped any such gathering would be "based on UN resolutions, the Arab (League) peace initiative, the return of occupied Arab lands and the construction of a Palestinian state."
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