Syria’s Assad says will only allow ‘impartial’ chemical attack probe

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says he will only allow an “impartial” chemical attack investigation into a recent suspected chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun town in Idlib Province.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with AFP on Thursday, Assad asserted that the suspected chemical weapons attack on the militant-held town was a “fabrication” to justify the subsequent US military strike on Syria’s  Shayrat air base in Homs Province.

“Definitely, 100 percent for us, it is fabrication…. Our impression is that the West, mainly the United States, is hand-in-glove with the terrorists,” the syrian president said, adding that they fabricated the whole story “in order to have a pretext for the attack.”

Over 80 people died in the April 4 Khan Shaykhun purported gas attack, which Western countries blamed on the Syrian government.

Using the incident as a pretext, US warships in the Mediterranean launched a barrage of 59 Tomahawk missiles against Shayrat Airfield in Syria’s Homs Province on April 7. Washington claimed that the airbase was the origin of the alleged chemical attack.