Putin Expects Fake Gas Attacks In Damascus to Justify Further US Strikes on Syria
Local Editor
Syrian terrorists are plotting to mount a poison gas attack in Damascus and blame it on President Bashar al-Assad's government to provide a pretext for further US missile strikes and possible regime change, Russian President Vladimir Putin expected.
Speaking in Moscow at a joint press conference with his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella, Putin claimed that a number of sources told him about such plans.
"We have information that a similar provocation is being prepared ... in other parts of Syria including in the southern Damascus suburbs where they are planning to again plant some substance and accuse the Syrian authorities of using [chemical weapons]," Putin said when asked if he was concerned about possible further US strikes on Syria.
In an apparent suggestion that such an attack was part of a wider US plan to intervene in the country, Putin compared the plot to the run up of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"Then the US representative at the UN Security Council showed alleged chemical weapons found in Iraq," he said.
"After that a military campaign in Iraq began, which ended with the destruction of the country, the growth of the terrorist threat and the appearance if Isil [Daesh]," he added.
Putin's comments came as the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was due to fly into Moscow in an attempt to persuade the Kremlin that al-Assad's use of chemical weapons means he is a liability for Russia and should be removed from power.
Putin said on Tuesday that Russia would be urgently asking the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the global chemical weapons watchdog, to investigate the Khan Shaykhun attack.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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