Syria denies Kerry's accusation

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(Xinhua) 08:26, September 02, 2013

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Syrian Foreign Ministry slammed on Friday the recent statements of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, saying Kerry used "fabricated" narratives circulated by armed rebels to frame the Syrian government regarding the chemical weapons use.

Kerry on Friday said that the Syrian government forces killed 1, 429 people in a chemical weapons attack near Damascus last week. He branded the alleged attack as "inconceivable horror."

In response to the allege, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the evidence that Kerry cited were old narratives disseminated by "terrorists."

It added the number that Kerry mentioned was "fake" which quoted the exiled opposition and the armed groups that encourage a U.S.-led aggression on Syria.

"The Foreign Ministry is surprised that a great country is deceiving its public opinion in such a naive way through relying on 'no evidence,'" the ministry said, asserting that "the United States adopts its stances in war and peace over what is being circulated on social networking websites."

"We would like to remind Kerry that Syria was the first country to suggest a resolution in the (UN) Security Council to strip the Middle East from mass destruction weapons that the United States rejected," the ministry added.

In Washington, Kerry said the United States already had the facts, adding that nothing that the UN weapons inspectors found could tell the Americans anything new.

The UN team is set to leave Syria on Saturday to analyze the samples that they have picked during their short mission in Syria following last week's chemical gas attack that the rebels accused the government troops of carrying out.

Meanwhile, Kerry stressed that any response by the U.S. wouldn' t drag Washington into the Syrian civil war unlike the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan.

For his part, President Barak Obama said Friday that he has not made a final decision on a military strike on Syria.

Obama said he was considering a "limited narrow act" in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, in remarks made before a meeting with three Baltic leaders at the White House.

"We're not considering any open-ended commitment," He said. "We 're not considering any boots on the ground approach."

"I have not made a final decision about various actions that might be taken to help enforce that norm," He said. "But as I've already said, I have had my military and our team look at a wide range of options."