Damascus, SANA – Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Moallem reaffirmed on Thursday that the Syrian Arab Army didn’t and will not use any kind of chemical weapons even against the terrorists who target the Syrian people.
In a press conference in Damascus, al-Moallem pointed out that the lie that the Syrian
army used this weapon came from countries known for always conspiring against Syria after terrorists have failed in their attacks and those countries have failed in their attempts to disrupt the political process.
“All of u learned about the statement of the Command of the Army and the Armed Forces and the statement of the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry that was sent to the UN Security Council and that sent to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the statement of Deputy Permanent Representative in New York, and all of these statements stressed that our forces could have not used chemical weapons neither in the past nor in the present and neither could they use them in the future in any place, and we condemn such a criminal act,” al-Moallem said.
Al-Moallem reminded the press conference that Syria had already joined the OPCW and submitted successive statements on this subject and in mid-2016, the Organization confirmed the accuracy of the Syrian data provided.
He however questioned the timing of this “unfair campaign” against Syria, linking it to
the fact that the past few weeks have witnessed active movement toward national
reconciliations, terrorist attacks in Jobar and the northern countryside of Hama to which the Syrian Army responded and succeeded to restore all points and the absence of terrorists from the latest Astana meeting upon Turkey’s request with the aim to disrupt the results at Astana.
He also referred to the fact at the fifth round of Geneva, the “Riyadh delegation” had
only one demand there, which is to take over power.
“When all these attempts failed, they came up with the lie of the army’s using chemical
weapons in Khan Sheikhoun,” said al-Moallem.
The Foreign Minister explained that the campaign of accusing the Syrian army of using chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun started at 06:00 am, while the first air raid carried out by the Syrian army was at 11:30 am of the same day targeting an ammunition store of Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists that included chemical weapons.
He went on clarifying that the evidence that the target was an ammunition depot is that the area where the video footage was filmed through the “White Helmets” and the London-based “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” was all around a small circle, stressing that if there were an airstrike that used chemical weapons, it would have spread over a diameter of over 1 km.”