West Used Terrorist Chemical Attacks in Iraq, Syria to Discredit Damascus – CSTO

Chemical attacks carried by terrorists in Iraq and Syria were used to discredit Damascus and cast a shadow over Russia, according to the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The chemical attacks carried out by terrorists in Syria and Iraq were used by the West to discredit the government in Damascus, Acting Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Valery Semerikov said Thursday.

"Unfortunately, the chemical attacks carried out recently by terrorists in Syria and Iraq, were used by the West to discredit the official Damascus and the role played by Russia and its allies in combating terrorism in the region," Semerikov said at the Moscow Conference on International Security.

Semerikov expressed serious concern over the fact that the war in the Middle East was becoming similar to a large-scale armed conflict which uses weapons of mass destruction.

On April 7, the United States conducted a missile strike against the Syrian government’s Ash Sha’irat airbase in the Idlib province. US President Donald Trump claimed that the strike was a response to the alleged April 4 chemical weapon attack in Idlib, an incident which the White House blamed on Damascus without providing evidence.

Damascus denied any involvement in the chemical attack, and the Syrian army said it did not have chemical weapons as they were destroyed under a 2013 deal, monitored by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

On April 20, Syrian President Bashar Assad told Sputnik that there was no chemical weapons attack in the Syrian province of Idlib, adding that the reports of it were a false flag play which was supposed to justify the US missile strike on the Syrian armed forces’ airbase.