Syria responds heavily to Trump's 'animal' remark for Assad

Moscow: Following Donald Trump's 'animal' remark for Syrian President Bashar Assad in the wake of the Idlib chemical attack, Syria's senior diplomat has come down heavily on the US President.

"If you are an 'animal' yourself, there is no need to think that everyone else is the same. Bashar Assad is the president of a sovereign state, he was elected by the people. And it's the Syrian people who should give him descriptions, not Trump," Syria's Deputy Minister of Expatriates and Foreign Affairs Ayman Susan told Sputnik.

With the West lashing out at the Syrian government of carrying out the alleged chemical attack in Syria's Idlib province on April, Trump has joined the chorus and blamed the current situation in Syria on Moscow's support of Assad and called the Syrian leader "an animal."

However, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem denied the government's involvement in the Idlib incident, saying it never used chemical weapons on either civilians or terrorists operating in the country and would never do so.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that the airstrike near Khan Shaykhun by the Syrian air force hit a terrorist warehouse that stored chemical weapons slated for delivery to Iraq, and called on the UN Security Council to launch a proper investigation into the incident.

On April 6, the United States had launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Syrian military airfield in Ash Sha'irat in response to the alleged chemical weapon use in Idlib province.