MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/. The US administration does not have any moral or political grounds to deliver a strike on Syria, the Arab Republic’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told reporters in Damascus on Monday.
The Syrian government "has not taken any steps, which could justify a new US aggressive move," the diplomat said, according to the state television.
"I’m authorized to say that Syria has fully eliminated chemical weapons, which could be used in military operations," Mekdad stressed. Syria’s authorities "honestly adhered to their commitments before the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and did not hide any storage facility from its experts."
The Syrian deputy foreign minister said the West’s new accusations against Damascus come as "the latest situation on the frontlines has been favorable for the government forces." "Those, who are behind the terrorist plot against Syria and act in the interests of dominance of the US and Israel in the Middle East, dislike this," he noted.
Last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow would adequately respond to possible US provocations regarding the Syrian army, but expected Washington not to use any covert intelligence information to create a pretext for a new strike on the Syrian government forces.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement last Monday that the United States had identified potential preparations for another chemical attack by the Assad regime. Syria’s government denied these allegations.
New strikes
The US administration should "weigh possible consequences before delivering a new strike on Syria," Mekdad added.
"They [the United States - TASS] should calculate everything and take into consideration the way that Moscow and Damascus would respond to a new act of aggression," the Syrian diplomat stressed.
He linked Washington’s threats to the successes that the Syrian government forces and their allies had achieved.
"It is obvious that the US administration has a huge desire to play a military role in the conflict," Mekdad said. "By attacking the Shayrat airbase [on April 7 - TASS], Donald Trump wanted to show that the United States will use military force wherever it chooses," the Syrian deputy foreign minister added.
He said that the opponents of Damascus were taking advantage of "cheap propaganda" when they speak about some chemical weapons that the Syrian armed forces allegedly had. "They are doing to justify their ties with terrorist groups and damage Syria’s credibility," Mekdad pointed out.