TEHRAN - A top Iranian security official warned on Wednesday that that Washington’s “illogical behaviors in Syria are clear examples of playing with fire”.

The statement by Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, came after the White House claimed late on Monday that there are “potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack” by the Syrian government against opposition forces and warned Syria would "pay a heavy price" if it went ahead.

On April 6 the U.S. military attacked a Syria-government airfield with 59 Tomahawk missiles under the pretext that the Syrian Army had used the airfield to drop chemical weapons against people in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province.

At the time Syrian President Beshar al-Assad dismissed allegations of the chemical attack as “100% fabrication”.

Shamkhani said the repetition of such “hollow claims” is a continuation of the U.S.-engineered “scenario” primarily intended to counter the Syrian Army’s “determining advances” against the militants and “cover up the repeated failures of the terrorism front”.

The security official said if the U.S. is right it must allow the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) investigate the issue.

“If the U.S. administration is sincere in its claims it must put the related information at the disposal of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons so that the issue is verified independently through cooperation with the Syrian government.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi also warned against a “possible unilateral and illegal” military moves by the U.S. under “hollow pretexts”, saying such acts would only lead to “chaos and more insecurity” in the region and give new life to “failing terrorists”.

Also, a senior Russian lawmaker on Tuesday dismissed the U.S. claim as an "unprecedented provocation".

Frants Klintsevich, first deputy chairman of the defense and security committee at the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, accused the United States of "preparing a new attack on the positions of Syrian forces."

 ‘U.S. aborted probe into alleged use of chemical arms by Syria’

Shamkhani said after the attack on the Syrian airfield, Iran and Russia “officially called for sending an international fact-finding team to investigate the claims by America, however Washington prevented it in order to halt a revelation of its false accusations.”

PA/PA