Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (left) and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev shaking hands. Photo: wiki commons.

NY Times – The Syrian government on Sunday rejected claims that it had carried out a massacre that killed more than 90 villagers, including at least 32 children, and the United Nations Security Council was expected to meet in the afternoon to discuss the killings, which its top officials have sharply denounced.

“We unequivocally deny the responsibility of government forces for the massacre,” Jihad Makdissi, the spokesman for the Syrian Foreign Ministry, said at a news conference in Damascus, the capital. He reiterated the standard government line that the deaths were caused by a terrorist attack, and he said he regretted that the United Nations and other governments seemed to have accepted the opposition’s version of events.

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