Moscow, June 28 (RHC)-- Russia has dismissed a warning by the White House that the Syrian government is making so-called "preparations" for a new chemical attack, saying such allegations are unacceptable.
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said "such threats to Syria's legitimate leaders are unacceptable." The Russian official also denounced the administration of US President Donald Trump for using the phrase "another chemical weapons attack."
Elsewhere in his remarks, Peskov said an independent probe into an attack in April was never conducted despite Russia's calls for one, adding: "That is why we do not think it is possible to lay the blame on the Syrian armed forces."
In Moscow on Tuesday, a senior Russian lawmaker dismissed the latest U.S. warning as "provocation." Frants Klintsevich, the first deputy chairman of the defense and security committee in the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, accused Washington of "preparing a new attack on the positions of Syrian forces."