Assad: Claim of chemical attack ‘a fabrication’
Print Edition
SYRIAN President Bashar Assad has dismissed claims of a chemical weapons attack as a “fabrication” to justify a US military strike.
In an interview in Damascus — his first since the alleged April 4 attack prompted a US airstrike on a Syrian airbase — Assad said his army had given up all its chemical weapons and that Syrian military power was not affected by the strike.
“Definitely, 100 percent for us, it’s fabrication,” he said.
“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.”
Western leaders, including US President Donald Trump, have accused Assad of being behind last week’s attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhun, saying his forces unleashed a chemical weapon during an airstrike.
At least 87 people were killed, including many children, and images of the dead and suffering victims provoked outrage around the world.
Moscow said the deaths were the result of a conventional strike hitting a rebel arms depot containing “toxic substances.” Assad said it was “not clear” whether an attack on Khan Sheikhun had even happened. “You have a lot of fake videos now,” he said.
“We don’t know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun. Were they dead at all?”
Trump ordered a strike that saw 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles slam into the airbase in central Syria from where Washington accused Assad’s forces of launching the attack.
It was the first direct US military action against Assad’s forces since the start of Syria’s civil war six years ago and led to a quick downward spiral in ties between Washington and Moscow.
However, Trump expressed confidence yesterday that US-Russian relations would “work out fine” after icy bilateral talks in Moscow, as he looked to China to “deal properly” with North Korea.
Trump faces crucial tests in the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula, with tensions building on both fronts over the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria and a mounting challenge from North Korea.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday that relations between Washington and Moscow were at a “low point.”
“Things will work out fine between the U.S.A. and Russia,” Trump tweeted.
“At the right time everyone will come to their senses & there will be lasting peace!”
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