Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who faces international calls to be tried as a war criminal, has branded claims his regime launched a chemical attack on his own citizens ‘100 per cent fabrication’.
He made the comment in an interview released today, less than 24 hours after world leaders clashed over a UN resolution condemning a chemical attack in the war-torn country.
Speaking to AFP, Assad also said:
* His army ‘gave up’ all chemical weapons in 2013
* He will only allow an ‘impartial’ probe into the chemical attack
* Syrian firepower is ‘not affected’ by a US strike last week
* The US is ‘not serious’ about finding a political situation to end the country’s civil war
Russia last night blocked the resolution which called for a speedy investigation into the use of sarin nerve gas last Tuesday, in an attack which claimed 87 lives.
In his first interview since American cruise missiles hit a central Syrian air base, Assad said: ‘Definitely, 100 percent for us, it’s fabrication… Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists. They fabricated the whole story in order to have a pretext for the attack.’
He said he would only allow an ‘impartial’ investigation into the alleged atrocity, stating that he would only sanction a probe by ‘unbiased’ country.
He told AFP bureau chief Sammy Ketz: ‘We can only allow any investigation when it’s impartial, when we make sure that unbiased countries will participate in this delegation in order to make sure that they won’t use it for politicised purposes.’
The dictator hit out at the Trump administration, saying peace talks aimed at resolving his country’s civil war were ineffective because Washington was ‘not serious’ about ending the conflict.
‘The United States is not serious in achieving any political solution. They want to use it as an umbrella for the terrorists.’
He claimed his regime handed over all its chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, and could not have carried out last week’s attack.
‘There was no order to make any attack… We gave up our arsenal a few years ago. Even if we have them, we wouldn’t use them,’ Assad stated.
Assad and the Kremlin have repeatedly denied the Syrian regime was involved in the attack in the northwestern Idlib province, blaming rebel militants.
The Security Council was told that tests carried out at the scene of the attack had confirmed the presence of sarin, or a similar agent.
The Syrian dictator, who has been in office since July 2000 when he succeeded his father Hafez al-Assad, is under increasing pressure amid calls for him to face trial for war crimes.
US forces unleashed a barrage of cruise missiles on a Syrian air base, from which the chemical attack is alleged to have been launched, in retaliation.
Assad’s comments come a day after fraught discussions at the United Nations. In dramatic developments yesterday:
* The UN Security Council was told British scientists had discovered evidence of nerve agent sarin, or a sarin-like substance, at the scene of the attack
* US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said there were ‘low levels of trust’ between the United States and Russia after meeting Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow
* British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called on Vladimir Putin to use his influence on Assad to end the war
* Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, accused Britain of ‘arrogance’ and defended its role Putin said there was ‘no evidence’ that Assad was behind the chemical attack
INVESTIGATORS SENT TO TURKEY TO PROBE CHEMICAL WEAPONS Global chemical weapons investigators have been sent to Turkey to collect samples in an inquiry into an alleged chemical weapons attack in neighbouring Syria last week that killed 87 people. The fact-finding mission was sent by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague to gather bio-metric samples and interview survivors, sources told Reuters on Thursday.The toxic gas attack on April 4, which killed scores of people including children, prompted a US cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base and widened a rift between the United States and Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his conflict with rebels and militants fighting to oust him.Syrian authorities have repeatedly denied using any chemical weapons. Russian officials said the gas had been released by an air strike on a poison gas storage depot controlled by rebels. Washington said that account was not credible, and rebels have denied it. Turkish health minister Recep Akdag said tests had confirmed that sarin gas was used in last week’s attackSamples taken from the poison gas site in Syria’s Idlib governorate tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, the British delegation at the OPCW said on Thursday.’UK scientists have analysed samples taken from Khan Sheikhoun. These have tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, or a sarin-like substance,’ the delegation said during a special session on Syria at the OPCW in The Hague.The UK result confirmed earlier testing by Turkish authorities that concluded that sarin had been used for the first time on a large scale in Syria’s civil war since 2013. The Syrian leader, pictured in February, faces increasing international pressure following a chemical weapon attack last weekThe OPCW mission will determine whether chemical weapons were used, but is not mandated to assign blame. Its findings, expected in three to four weeks, will be passed to a joint United Nations-OPCW investigation tasked with identifying individuals or institutions responsible for using chemical weapons.International investigators have concluded that sarin, chlorine and sulphur mustard gas have been used in Syria’s six-year-old conflict, with government forces using chlorine and ISIS militants using sulphur mustard.Last week’s poison gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the rebel-held province of Idlib near the Turkish border was the most lethal since a sarin attack on Aug. 21, 2013 killed hundreds in a rebel-controlled suburb of the capital Damascus.
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