The Dutch authorities were fully aware of the consequences of this operation by the Dutch Air Force and simply concealed the fact of mass killing of Iraqi civilians from the Dutch public, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova told a press conference.
"Under pressure from the public and certain MPs, Dutch Defence Minister Ank Bijleveld finally admitted that 70 civilians were killed during this operation by the Dutch Air Force. The Russian Foreign Ministry released an assessment of this event last December But at that time The Hague stubbornly rejected any involvement in killing several dozen civilians," she noted.
The perpetrators in the Hague, as the diplomat stressed, were found only under the pressure of evidence.
"Five years were not enough to discover the fate of the people who were simply bombed and killed in a foreign country. Someone ordered this, and not by mistake. Someone gave an order and 70 innocent people were killed. These 70 civilian deaths have been counted in the total statistics of the anti-ISIS coalition since April 2017," Zakharova concluded.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Mikhail Tereshchenko / TASS