[Toxic gas comes under the category of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).] <<Vladimir Putin: ...
Secondly, regarding the people killed or injured (in Idlib) as a result of the use of weapons, including chemical weapons, this is false information. At the moment, we are absolutely certain that it was simply a provocation. ***Assad did not use those (chemical) weapons and all of that was done by people who wanted to blame it on him*** [emphasis added - Sukla]. Furthermore, our intelligence services received additional information suggesting that ***there were plans to re-enact a similar scenario in other parts of Syria, including near Damascus***[emphasis added - Sukla]. We made that information public. ***Thank God, the plotters had enough common sense not to follow through*** [emphasis added - Sukla]. (Source: 'St Petersburg International Economic Forum plenary meeting: Vladimir Putin attended a plenary meeting of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.', June 2, 2017, St Petersburg at <http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54667>.) Compare this with: <<MOSCOW, April 5. /TASS/. A Syrian aviation airstrike on the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhun on Tuesday targeted workshops to produce chemical-laden projectiles, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday. ***"According to Russian airspace monitoring systems, yesterday between 11.30 and 12.30 local time the Syrian aviation carried out an airstrike on the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhun, targeting a major ammunition storage facility of terrorists and a cluster of military hardware. The territory of this storage facility housed workshops to produce projectiles stuffed with toxic agents," Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.*** [Emphasis added - Sukla.] ... ***"We assure that this information is completely unbiased and true," he added.*** [Emphasis added - Sukla.] ***Earlier on Tuesday, Reuters reported, citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, that an airstrike by either Syrian or Russian air forces in the Idlib province left 58 people dead, including 11 children. The agency said that the strike was probably carried out by Syria’s government troops, who used an unknown "toxic gas."*** [Emphasis added - Sukla.] The Russian Defense Ministry has immediately rejected the information as "fake," adding that none of its planes performed airstrikes on Khan Sheikhun and its outskirts. Syria’s Defense Ministry blamed the attack on terrorists and their supporters and rejected any use of toxic agents in Khan Sheikhun. The country’s Foreign Ministry said the accusations against Damascus were "fabricated." Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad in an interview with the Al-Mayadeen radio said the government warned about the possibility of a similar attack several weeks ago.>> (Source: <http://tass.com/world/939417>.) <<Russian News Agency TASS (Russian: Информационное агентство России ТАСС, tr. Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii TASS), abbr. TASS (Russian: ТАСС) is a major news agency in Russia, founded in 1902. Tass is the largest Russian news agency, and the fourth largest in the world after Reuters, the Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse (AFP).[1] ***TASS is registered as a Federal State Unitary Enterprise, owned by the Government of Russia.[2] Headquartered in Moscow*** [emphasis added - Sukla], TASS has 70 offices in Russia and in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), as well as 68 bureaus around the world.>> (Source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TASS>.) <<Igor Konashenkov Chief of the Directorate of Media service and Information of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, Major-General>> (Source: <http://eng.mil.ru/en/management/details.htm?id=10682684@SD_Employee>.) Any comment is, evidently, superfluous. Still then: ***Putin above, in the subject interview, did present a (whole new) version 2.0 on the Idlib toxic gas attack, with a straight face, clearly contradicting the version 1.0 put out earlier by his Defence Ministry - represented by no less than its "Chief of the Directorate of Media service and Information", immediately in the wake of the attack and the resultant uproar, without even the slightest hint of acknowledging that contradiction.*** Sukla -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
