00:57USA: "Only regime could have carried out this attack" - Power
USA: "Only regime could have carried out this attack" - Power
US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power spoke to the press in New York on Monday after the release of a report by UN chemical weapons investigators, which showed that chemical weapons had been used in Syria on a 'relatively large scale'. Power lay the blame strictly at the feet of the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, citing technical data from the report.
Speaking to the press, Power said: "The technical details of the UN report make clear that only the regime could have carried out this large-scale chemical weapons attack. We will analyse the UN's findings in great detail, very carefully. But based on our preliminary review, I will note one particular observation. We have associated one type of munition cited in the UN report, 122 mm rockets, with previous regime attacks. We have reviewed thousands of open-source videos related to the current conflict in Syria and have not observed the opposition manufacturing or using this style of rocket."
Power gave her remarks shortly after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon revealed that the report confirmed the use of sarin gas in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21. The report comes on the heels of an agreement reached by Russia and the US to have the Syrian government acknowledge and destroy their stockpile of chemical weapons.
00:57USA: "Only regime could have carried out this attack" - Power
US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power spoke to the press in New York on Monday after the release of a report by UN chemical weapons investigators, which showed that chemical weapons had been used in Syria on a 'relatively large scale'. Power lay the blame strictly at the feet of the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, citing technical data from the report.
Speaking to the press, Power said: "The technical details of the UN report make clear that only the regime could have carried out this large-scale chemical weapons attack. We will analyse the UN's findings in great detail, very carefully. But based on our preliminary review, I will note one particular observation. We have associated one type of munition cited in the UN report, 122 mm rockets, with previous regime attacks. We have reviewed thousands of open-source videos related to the current conflict in Syria and have not observed the opposition manufacturing or using this style of rocket."
Power gave her remarks shortly after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon revealed that the report confirmed the use of sarin gas in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21. The report comes on the heels of an agreement reached by Russia and the US to have the Syrian government acknowledge and destroy their stockpile of chemical weapons.