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Russia expects US top diplomat to comment on airstrike on Syrian base during Moscow visit

Preparations for the US top diplomat's Moscow visit are under way

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova Mikhail Dzhaparidze/TASS

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

© Mikhail Dzhaparidze/TASS

MOSCOW, April 8. /TASS/. Russia expects US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to comment on the recent US airstrike at a military base in Homs during his upcoming visit to Moscow, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

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"The visit is on the agenda, so let him come and tell us about the strange things they did today," Maria Zakharova said. "We will also tell everything we think about this."

She said preparations for the visit are under way.

"I can confirm that today we contacted the US embassy to solve technical issues in preparations for this visit," the spokeswoman said.

On an order from US President Donald Trump, the US armed forces fired a total of 59 Tomahawk subsonic cruise missiles at a military airfield in Syria’s Homs Governorate. The deadly strike came as a response for the chemical attack in Idlib on April 4 and targeted what Washington claims was a starting location for the attack.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow views the incident as an aggression against a sovereign state. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described it as an act of aggression under a far-fetched pretext.

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