By Ben Kerrigan-
Theresa May has condemned the “barbaric” alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria.
The UK prime minister said the attack was another example of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime’s brutality, “the regime and its backers including Russia, must be held to account”.
Russia has said no evidence of a chemical weapons attack in formerly rebel-held Douma has been found.
America and France have also threatened a “joint, strong response” to the alleged attack.
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“The UK utterly condemns the use of chemical weapons in any circumstances and we must urgently establish what happened on Saturday,” Mrs May said after a meeting with the Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen in Copenhagen.
“If confirmed, this is yet another example of the Assad regime’s brutality and brazen disregard for its own people and for its legal obligations not to use these weapons.
“If they are found to be responsible, the regime and its backers – including Russia – must be held to account.”
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She said the UK was urgently working with its allies to assess what had taken place. Russia insists no evidence of a chemical weapons attack in formerly rebel-held Douma has been found.
“We’ve seen it’s not only adults that have been affected, but children have been affected by this attack,” she Videos shot by rescue workers showed lifeless bodies of men, women and children with foam at their mouths.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavro said no evidence of a chemical weapons attack had been found, adding that Russian specialists and aid workers had visited the area. However, specialists from the UK and the U.S are also due to inspect the scene themselves.
The United Nations Security Council is discussing the allegations on Monday.
Mrs May said the events in Douma fit into “a troubling wider pattern of acts of aggression and abuse of long-standing international norms on counter proliferation and the use of chemical weapons”.
She said Russia’s “repeated vetoes” at the UN “have enabled these rules to be broken and removed mechanisms that allow us to investigate and hold to account chemical weapons attacks in Syria”.
“This must stop,” the UK prime minister said.
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