Russian news agency TASS reported that Putin called for an \u201cunbiased investigation\u201d over a chemical weapons attack in Syria that killed scores earlier last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cNaturally, those responsible for the death of Syrians [in the chemical weapons attack in Idlib] must be found and punished,\u201d Putin said during a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Russia\u2019s Black Sea city of Sochi, TASS reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it should be done only after a thorough and unbiased investigation,\u201d Putin added.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe resolutely condemn any use of chemical weapons,\u201d he added.<\/p>\nError, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 14)<\/span>\n The Khan Sheikhun attack April 4 killed at least 100 people and injured more than 500, according to the Syrian opposition\u2019s health minister.<\/p>\n On April 12, Russia shot down a UN Security Council draft resolution that would have condemned the chemical weapons attack.<\/p>\n The two leaders also discussed the Astana and Geneva peace negotiations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are confident that a solution to the Syrian problem can be found only through United Nations-brokered peace talks,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.<\/p>\n Several rounds of peace talks — in Geneva and the Kazakh capital Astana — have so far failed to end the conflict, in which hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians are believed to have been killed to date.<\/p>\n \u201cWe share the same position concerning the fight against international terrorism. Germany and Russia can cooperate even closer in this area,\u201d TASS quoted Merkel as saying.<\/p>\n The two leaders also discussed the situation in eastern Ukraine, which has been marred by conflict since March 2014 following Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to ensure Ukraine\u2019s access to its own state border,\u201d said Merkel.<\/p>\nError, group does not exist! Check your syntax! (ID: 9)<\/span>\n Anadolu Agency<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Russian President Vladimir Putin met German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss the latest situation in Syria and Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,14],"tags":[4307,599,1567],"class_list":["post-58796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-world","tag-angela-merkel","tag-russia","tag-vladimir-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}