The Syrian army says foreign-sponsored terrorist groups are making preparations to stage false-flag chemical attacks in the northwestern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo to implicate government troops and invent pretexts for possible foreign acts of aggression against the Arab country.

Western attempts to manipulate the Chemical Weapons Convention have drawn Russia's firm response, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying the West tries to promote its own policies and turn the convention into its "obedient tool."

Iran's ambassador to the Netherlands has welcomed US Senator Richard Black's recent warning of a fake chemical weapons attack in Syria by Britain's MI6 spy agency to pin the blame on Damascus.

Russia says it is concerned about the attempts being made by the United States to prepare the global public opinion for new military aggression against Syria.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the White Helmets have chosen 22 families with children, as well as orphans kidnapped from refugee camps to participate in their staged filming.

Syria’s Ambassador to the United Nations Bashar al-Jaafari says military operations against terrorist factions in the militant-held province of Idlib are a sovereign right of the Arab country and liberating the northwestern region “will be the last nail in the coffin of terrorism.”  

Russia has strongly dismissed US President Donald Trump’s warning to Syria not to carry out a full-scale offensive against terrorists in the militant-held province of Idlib, stressing that the northwestern region is a “nest of terrorism.”