Syria refutes US accusation of 2013 chemical attack

Syria’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday slammed the US State Department’s recent statement accusing the Damascus government of carrying out a chemical attack in a former rebel-held area in 2013.

The Ministry dismissed the Department’s statement as “baseless allegations… through which the US tried to distort facts and spread lies” about the alleged chemical attack in the Eastern Ghouta countryside of the capital Damascus, reports Xinhua news agency.

The State Department made the accusation in a recent statement alleging that the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used “nerve agent sarin” in the Ghouta district of Damascus to kill more than 1,400 people.

The Foreign Ministry, in its response, said that the statement clearly reflects “the US continued hostile method against Syria which comes to cover its failure in Afghanistan and its support to terrorism that Syria encounters”.

“The government of the Syrian Arab Republic reaffirms once again that it stands against the use of that kind of weapons in any place, at any time and under any circumstance and by any side as it is an issue that opposes Syria’s principles and moral,” said the Ministry.

The attack, during the Syrian civil war, took place in the early hours of August 21, 2013, when opposition-controlled areas in Ghouta were struck by rockets containing the chemical agent sarin.

Estimates of the death toll range from at least 281 people to 1,729.

The attack was the deadliest use of chemical weapons since the Iran–Iraq War.