Asked if airstrikes by Syrian troops could have struck a terrorist chemical weapons depot, Assad declined to speculate, saying it was often hard to know the details about targets from aerial pictures. "Apart from anything else, we believe it's the only regime that has the capability to make such an attack".
In his first interview since an April 4 attack on the northern town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed more than 80 people, sickened hundreds and angered the world, President Bashar Assad reasserted the government's denials of responsibility but contended that the episode had been fabricated as a pretext for a US retaliatory missile strike. The United States and other Western governments blame Assad's regime.
The suspected chemical attack killed at least 87 people, including many children, and images of the dead and of suffering victims provoked global outrage.
Investigators from the OPCW chemical weapons agency have been sent to the site of the Syrian air attack to interview survivors and gather samples.
When asked again if he thought the attack was a fabrication, Mr Assad replied, "Definitely, 100 per cent for us, it's fabrication".
The preliminary findings of technical experts concluded the allegations that chemical weapons were used on civilians in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province were "credible".
In the interview, Assad insisted his regime gave up all its chemical weapons in 2013.
Echoing charges by Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Toner said there can be little doubt that the chemical weapons attack in Idlib province was carried out by Syrian government forces.
"The US missile strikes can not be justified", added the Syrian minister.
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"We strongly reject the accusations against us in conniving at the tragic events in Syria and even in complicity in a crime involving the use of chemical weapons".
The coalition said Thursday that one its air strikes had accidentally killed 18 members of the Syrian alliance south of Tabqa, a strategically important town on the Euphrates River close to Raqqa.
"On April 4, the lifeless bodies of innocent victims, grotesquely contorted and twisted by the nerve agent sarin, tell the real story", Ward continued.
President Assad's flat denial that his country has used chemical weapons and that last week's incident was a fabrication concocted by al-Qaeda and Washington does not square with the "case for the prosecution".
The statement says "the two leaders agreed that the attack in question be investigated by the OPCW, which is an independent organization whose legitimacy is recognized".
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons' Fact Finding Mission for Syria is conducting an investigation and is expected to report its findings in three weeks. The United States and its allies had blamed the Syrian regime headed by Bashar al-Assad, who has been waging, for six years, an excruciating civil war against US -backed rebels in the northern part of the country.
The polarised positions were evident at the UN Security Council Wednesday, when Russian Federation vetoed a Western-drafted resolution that would have required Syrian cooperation in an investigation into the suspected chemical attack.
Russian Federation failed to keep its agreement.
Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed.
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