Washington’s threats to use force against Syria are part of its ongoing blackmail policy, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters on Tuesday.

Axar.az reports citing TASS.

"This is absolutely the policy of threats and blackmail," Ryabkov stressed.

The diplomat noted that the Trump administration earlier signaled that should any incident with the use of toxic agents or chlorine repeat, the United States would blame Damascus. "Then a massive strike will follow, and its scale will surpass the one the US carried out with its allies in the past," he said.

Situation in Idlib

Moscow is continuously monitoring the situation in the Syrian province of Idlib, according to Ryabkov.

"Our military has been assessing the military situation on a round-the-clock basis, without any breaks," he said. "Constant information exchange is going on with our colleagues from Turkey, as well as with Damascus. The secure channels we established with the US military in order to prevent incidents continue to operate. We cannot let Idlib remain a terrorist stronghold," Ryabkov added.