Vladimir Putin believes the US strikes on Syria remind of its attack on Iraq when the US launched a military campaign under the unproven pretext of Baghdad’s alleged possession of chemical weapons

MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. Russia has data that new provocations are planned in Syria with the goal of putting the blame on Damascus for allegedly using chemical weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters after talks with his Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella on Tuesday. "We have information from different sources that these provocations - I cannot call them otherwise - are being prepared in other regions of Syria, including in the southern suburbs of Damascus where there are plans to throw some substance and accuse the official Syrian authorities," Putin said. The Russian president has called to carry out a thorough investigation into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria’s Idlib on April 4. "We believe that any incident of this kind should be officially investigated," Putin said. "We plan to turn to the United Nations bodies in The Hague and call on the global community to thoroughly investigate into this incident and make balanced decisions based on the investigation’s outcome," the Russian leader added.

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Lesson of history The US missile strikes on Syria remind of its attack on Iraq in 2003 when the United States launched a military campaign under the unproven pretext of Baghdad’s alleged possession of chemical weapons, Putin said. The United States’ military campaign against Iraq in 2003 led to the emergence of the Islamic State terrorist organization on the international scene, Putin stressed. "This [the US strike on Syria] strongly reminds of the 2003 events when US representatives in the UN Security Council showed allegedly chemical weapons found in Iraq," the Russian president said. "After that, a military campaign started in Iraq and it ended with the destruction of the country, the growth of the terrorist threat and the emergence of the ISIL [the former name of the Islamic State terrorist organization outlawed in Russia] on the international scene, no more and no less," Putin said. "The same is happening now," the Russian president said. Europe’s support for US missile strikes on Syria Putin believes that by supporting the US missile strikes on Syria, the European countries seek to establish relations with Donald Trump’s administration. "Everyone wants to restore relations with the Western community after, thanks to the former US administration, many European countries took an anti-Trump stance during the US election campaign," he said.