Claims that government forces launched a chemical attack on a rebel-held town in Syria last week are “100 percent fabrication,” the country's president Bashar al-Assad reportedly told AFP news agency on Thursday.
Assad said Syria’s military had given up all chemical weapons in 2013 and will only allow an "impartial" probe of the deadly attack in northern Idlib province last Tuesday, AFP said on its Twitter account, quoting remarks made by Assad in the exclusive video interview.
The interview was the first given by Assad since the attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in which 87 adults and 31 children died.
Assad claimed the US was working “hand in glove with the terrorists” and said it and its Western allies made up the chemical attack as a pretext for the US cruise missile strikes against a Syrian government airbase last Friday, according to AFP.
Turkey and Britain have said their scientists found evidence the nerve agent Sarin was used.
Syrian authorities have repeatedly denied using any chemical weapons. Syria's key ally Russia said the gas was released by an air strike on a chemical storage depot controlled by anti-government rebels.
The US, the United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO) and chemical weapons inspectors have all cast doubt on Russia and Syria's claims.
Russia, Syria's key ally, angered the US, UK and France on Wednesday by vetoing a UN draft resolution that would have required Assad's government to cooperate with an investigation into what happened.
