Germany urges Russia, China to back Idlib investigation

By Ayhan Simsek

BERLIN

Germany has called for an independent inquiry into Tuesday’s deadly chemical attack in northern Syria and urged Russia and China to support a UN Security Council resolution to punish those responsible.

Speaking at a news conference in Berlin on Wednesday, deputy government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer strongly condemned the attack in the northern Syrian town of Khan Shaykun, Idlib province that killed over 100 civilians, and called for international unity against such war crimes.

“The German government welcomes the UN Security Council meeting scheduled for today in order to discuss the recent incident.

“We expect that Russia and China would not reject an independent inquiry on this incident, which could make it possible to identify those responsible for it and hold them accountable,” she said.

Demmer denounced the attack as a gruesome war crime and said the Bashar al-Assad regime had been responsible for similar crimes in the past.

“Those who are responsible for this inhuman crime should be held accountable. This includes, let me emphasize this point, this includes President al-Assad and his government,” she said.

"Even though the investigation on this recent incident has not yet been concluded, it should be pointed out that the responsibility of the al-Assad regime for chemical attacks in the past has already been documented,” she added.

Demmer underlined that Germany would continue to make every effort to try to ease the suffering of the Syrian people and to revive stalled efforts to find a political solution to the conflict.

“The German government believes that, as the allies of the al-Assad regime, Russia and Iran bear responsibility here,” she said, adding that the massive military support by those two countries had encouraged the regime to walk away from negotiations.