{"id":302163,"date":"2017-04-04T21:01:21","date_gmt":"2017-04-04T20:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/russia-iran-bear-moral-responsibility-for-syria-chemical-attack-us-state-dept\/"},"modified":"2017-04-04T21:01:21","modified_gmt":"2017-04-04T20:01:21","slug":"russia-iran-bear-moral-responsibility-for-syria-chemical-attack-us-state-dept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/russia-iran-bear-moral-responsibility-for-syria-chemical-attack-us-state-dept\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia, Iran bear 'moral responsibility' for Syria chemical attack \u2013 US State Dept."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Condemning the chemical weapons attack in Idlib province, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused the Syrian government of \u201cbarbarism\u201d and said Russia and Iran also bear moral responsibility for the deaths.<\/p>\n

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In a statement of Tuesday afternoon, Tillerson pointed the finger at Damascus, saying that \u201cit is clear that this is how Bashar Assad operates: with brutal, unabashed barbarism.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who uses chemical weapons to attack his own people shows a fundamental disregard for human decency and must be held accountable,\u201d<\/em> Tillerson said.<\/p>\n

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NEW: Sec. Tillerson on Syria chemical weapons attack: \u201cClear that this is how Bashar al-Assad operates: with brutal, unabashed barbarism.” pic.twitter.com\/BzpqPyBdBo<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Dan Linden (@DanLinden) April 4, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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He called on Russia and Iran to exercise their influence over Damascus \u201cto guarantee that this sort of horrific attack never happens again,\u201d<\/em> and said that they \u201calso bear great moral responsibility\u201d<\/em> for the deaths, as self-proclaimed guarantors of the Syrian ceasefire.<\/p>\n

The attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun reportedly killed 58 people, including 11 children under the age of eight, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the US\/UK-sponsored \u2018White Helmets\u2019 rescue group.<\/p>\n

The Syrian army has denied allegations that it was behind the attack.<\/p>\n

“We deny completely the use of any chemical or toxic material in Khan Sheikhoun town today and the army has not used nor will use in any place or time, neither in past or in future,”<\/em> the army said in a statement quoted by Reuters.<\/p>\n

The Russian air force did not conduct any airstrikes in the Idlib Governorate.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the reports it might be that the Syrian Army targeted a place that was used as a chemical weapons factory or that stocked chemicals by the rebels,\u201d<\/em> Jamal Wakeem, a professor of history and international relations at the Lebanese University in Beirut, told RT.<\/p>\n

Wakeem said he doesn\u2019t believe the Syrian Army would be so \u201cdesperate\u201d<\/em> as to use chemical weapons, given the fact that it has been \u201cachieving major success on various fronts.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He went on to state that although rebels have previously accused the Syrian government and Russian military of using chemical weapons, that news \u201cturned out to be false,\u201d<\/em> noting that there was instead evidence that rebels had used chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published time: 4 Apr, 2017 19:45Edited time: 4 Apr, 2017 20:01 Condemning the chemical weapons attack in Idlib province, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused the Syrian government of \u201cbarbarism\u201d and said Russia and Iran also bear moral responsibility for the deaths. In a statement of Tuesday afternoon, Tillerson pointed the finger at Damascus, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":302164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-302163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}