Iranian President acknowledges chemical weapons killed people in Syria

"Many of the innocent people of Syria have been injured and martyred by chemical agents and this is unfortunate," recently elected Rouhani was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday for the first time that chemical weapons had killed people in ally Syria and called for the international community to prevent their use.

Tehran has previously accused Syrian rebels of being behind what it called suspected chemical attacks.

"We completely and strongly condemn the use of chemical weapons, because the Islamic Republic of Iran is itself a victim of chemical weapons," he said, according to the agency.

Iran suffered chemical weapons attacks by Iraqi forces during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

"The Islamic Republic gives notice to the international community to use all its might to prevent the use of these weapons anywhere in the world, especially in Syria," Mehr news agency quoted Rouhani as saying.

Syria's government denies using such weapons and Iran's foreign minister said on Thursday that groups fighting Assad's forces in a two-year-old rebellion must have been behind what he then said was just a suspected gas attack.

The uprising against four decades of Assad family rule has turned into a civil war that has killed more than 100,000.

Foreign powers have said chemical weapons could change the calculus in terms of intervention and are urging the Syrian government to allow a U.N. team of experts to examine the site of Wednesday's reported attacks.

The United States on Friday was repositioning naval forces in the Mediterranean to give President Barack Obama the option of an armed strike on Syria, although officials said that Obama had made no decision on military action.

In response, Iran warned the United States on Saturday not to get militarily involved in Syria.