MOSCOW. April 13 (Interfax) - Accusations that Russia is allegedly involved in a campaign to prove that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not guilty in connection with the chemical attack in Idlib are unfounded, and Moscow has invited Washington to conduct an impartial investigation into this incident, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We ask for facts to be provided if we are accused of something. But there are no facts, although the White House has to theoretically make some statements with groundless accusations against us under pressure from opponents of [U.S. President Donald] Trump," Lavrov said at a press conference on Thursday.
"I think that during the briefing in the White House yesterday we were once again accused of interference in the elections in Montenegro last year. They also said that Russia was involved in a disinformation campaign with the aim of helping al-Assad escape responsibility for the chemical attack," he said.
The situation in Syria was one of the central topics during talks with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson yesterday, the Russian minister said.
"It seemed to me that we quite convincingly provided him with arguments in favor of arranging a special independent investigation on the basis of structures established within the UN and also the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," he said.
"Given the colossal and quite confrontational repercussions around what happened in Syria, [it is necessary to] include professional inspectors, who could be invited both from Western countries, the Russian Federation and countries of the region, in these structures," he said.
"It seemed to me that Tillerson met this idea quite positively and promised to work on it. We spoke in favor of Russia putting forth such an initiative jointly with the U.S. But he turned out to be unready for that, and we submitted this proposal in our sovereign capacity," Lavrov said.