President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has told an Italian television station his government will respect United Nations accords on chemical weapons.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution on Friday demanding the eradication of Syria's chemical weapons.
In the interview, Mr Assad pointed out that Syria joined an international agreement against the acquisition and use of chemical weapons even before that resolution was passed.
"The central part of it is based on what we ourselves wanted. So it is not about a resolution, in reality it is our own intention," he said, according to an Italian translation of his remarks.
"In 2003, the UN Security Council proposed liberating this entire region from these arms and declaring the Middle East a region free of chemical weapons.
''So it is obvious, we have to respect these conditions, it is part of our history," he said. "We have to respect all treaties we sign."
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is despatching inspectors to start preparing the programme.
The OPCW has set an accelerated programme for achieving elimination of the weapons by mid-2014.
In a statement issued in The Hague, the agency said inspections in Syria will commence from 1 October.
A deal announced by Russia and the United States in Geneva on 15 September averted military action by the United States against Mr Assad's government, which Washington blames for the killing of 1429 civilians by sarin nerve gas in Damascus on 21 August.
