Russian leaders condemned the United States for warning Syrian President Bashar Assad not to carry out another chemical weapons attack, and called the statement a threat to “legitimate” Syrian leadership.
“We consider unacceptable any such threats to the legitimate government of the Syrian Arab Republic,” Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in a statement carried on Kremlin-run media.
Peskov accompanied that rebuke of the White House with a stipulation that chemical weapons should not be used in Syria, but maintained that President Trump’s team is wrong to accuse Assad of using them in the past, and saying he is preparing to do so again. The Trump administration, however, emphasized that the U.S. intelligence community is unanimous that the threat is brewing.
“The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said. “As we have previously stated, the United States is in Syria to eliminate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. If, however, Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price.”
Putin and his aides have argued for months that Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria remains unproven, and that it might have been staged as a pretext to justify an attack on the regime.
“We strongly disagree with the wording ‘another attack,’ because, as you know, despite all the demands of the Russian side, there was no independent international investigation of the previous tragedy with the use of chemical weapons,” Peskov said.
A top British diplomat contradicted those statements during a UN Security Council meeting in April. “Chemical weapons scientists at Porton Down, in the United Kingdom, have analysed samples obtained from Khan Shaykun, and these have tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, or a sarin-like substance,” Matthew Rycroft, the UK ambassador to the UN, said during a testy debate with Russian and Syria diplomats.
