Assad dismisses claims he ordered Idlib attack as ‘fabrication’

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson echoed that comment after meetings with Russian leaders in Moscow, saying that relations are at a low point with a low level of trust.

Moscow vetoed a Western draft United Nations resolution Wednesday, saying it failed to mention the need to inspect the area of the attack.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov blasted U.S. claims that it has “irrefutable evidence” of election interference.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad believes the US fabricated a chemical weapons attack in order to justify a cruise missile strike, he told AFP in a Thursday interview.

Russian Federation has rejected accusations from the West that its Assad’s forces were responsible for a chemical attack and has lashed out at the USA for its cruise missile strikes last week against a Syrian air base.

NPR’s Lucian Kim reports that Lavrov went into talks “warning that the US not repeat strikes against Syrian government forces”.

Russian Federation vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Wednesday that demanded the Syrian government cooperate with an inquiry into the suspected sarin-gas attack that killed dozens of people.

The meeting, which lasted nearly two hours, comes after officials in Moscow initially said Putin would not meet with Tillerson during his first visit to Russian Federation, later hedging to say a sit down was possible.

Now what? When facing three opponents, as America is with Russia, Syria and Iran, the most obvious response is to try to break them up through a side deal with one of them.

The current “low level of trust” between the US and Russian Federation must be improved, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said.

The United States is ready to work towards a diplomatic solution to end the six-year war in Syria, Washington’s UN envoy Nikki Haley said on Wedneday. However, Putin appears to have found time to meet with the former recipient of Russia’s Order of Friendship, who reportedly ditched his press pool to catch up with Putin.

“Putin is backing a person that’s truly an evil person”. I didn’t think that was a good sign.

Mr Assad added that the Syrian government gave up chemical weapons as part of a 2013 agreement, in the interview broadcast by AFP.

The text also condemned the reported use of chemical weapons and demanded a speedy investigation.

The West has accused Bashar al-Assad’s forces of carrying out the attack in Idlib province that killed 87 people and shocked the world.

“The use of chemical weapons as a pretext for violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of an independent state – a member of the United Nations – is a very unsafe activity”, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.