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Tuesday 16 Feb 2016 - 13:19 Makkah mean time-7-5-1437
Aleppo, (IINA) - France and Turkey have said that air strikes which targeted five hospitals in northern Syria constitute war crimes, according to media reports.
Turkey's foreign ministry blamed Russia for the attacks; however, Moscow is yet to respond to the allegations.
One of the hospitals hit in the assault was funded by Geneva-based medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Mego Terzian, president of MSF France, told Reuters that "either the [Syrian] government or Russia" was responsible.
France said it condemned the bombing of the (MSF) clinic in the strongest terms, with Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault saying such acts "constitute war crimes".
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry released a statement calling the attacks "obvious" war crimes.
"It is deplorably observed that instead of halting their airstrikes, Russians especially have escalated these attacks in Syria and targeted civilians, hospitals, schools", said the statement.
"These attacks that we strongly condemn are unconscionable and an obvious war crime under international law", read the statement. "With such crimes, Russian Federation is causing the Syrian civil war to get deepened and a dangerous escalation in the region".
However, Syrian ambassador to Moscow Riad Haddad said the U.S was to blame, a claim the Pentagon dismissed as ‘patently false’.
U.S spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said: "We have no reason to strike in Idlib, as ISIS is not active there".
It is noteworthy that International humanitarian law bans any attack on patients and medical personnel or indeed any attack on medical facilities even if combatants take refuge in them, they are zones that must be respected under the rules of war.
Meanwhile, Syrian Regime Leader Bashar Al-Assad has cast doubt over plans to implement a "cessation of hostilities" in Syria, which was agreed on last week by world powers including Russia.
However, in his first comments on the announcement, Al-Assad said such a ceasefire did not mean all the parties would put down their weapons.
"So far they say they want a ceasefire within a week", he said in televised comments. "Who is capable of gathering all these conditions and requirements within a week?"
AG/IINA
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