A senior Russian diplomat says Moscow believes that an worldwide probe into last week's chemical attack in Syria should include experts from Brazil, India, Iran and other nations.
The meeting was called to discuss the April 4 attack on the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun that killed almost 90 people.
"Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists", Assad said, according to the wire service.
He insisted several times that his forces had turned over all chemical weapons stockpiles in 2013, under a deal brokered by Russian Federation to avoid threatened U.S. military action.
It was the deadliest such incident since a sarin gas attack killed hundreds of people in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus in 2013, prompting threats of US military action.
Claiming that there are " a lot of fake videos now", he insisted that his government gave up all chemical weapons in 2013.
Assad, who has been widely denounced for documented atrocities committed by his military during the civil war, said of the reports about the Khan Sheikhoun attack, "Definitely, 100 percent for us, it's fabrication".
Community gathers for candlelight vigil in honor of North Park shooting victims
Some six weeks earlier, Anderson was a newlywed calling his wife an "angel" in one of many social media posts professing his love. Smith's mother, Irma Sykes , said her daughter had been friends with Anderson for about four years before they got married.
Syria and its most powerful ally, Russia, have vehemently denied the accusations, saying that terrorist groups were behind the deaths.
A British delegation at the world's chemical weapons watchdog said on Thursday that samples taken from the attack site tested positive for the nerve agent sarin. "The US missile strikes can not be justified", added the Syrian minister.
Mr Assad also said that he would only allow what he called an "impartial" investigation into the events at Khan Sheikhoun, to ensure it would not be used for "politicised purposes". "We don't know whether those dead children were killed in Khan Sheikhun".
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said experts had analysed available information "and their preliminary assessment (was) that this was a credible allegation".
"Even if we have them, we wouldn't use them, and we have never used our chemical arsenal in our history".
The description appeared meant to corroborate the Syrian government's claims that all chemical weapons attacks in the war have been carried out by militant extremists. "They were there. So we'll find out", he said.
Comments