Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley speaks during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, covid-19, in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House on April 1, 2020, in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP)

A top US general says it is still unknown whether the coronavirus emerged from a wet market in China, a laboratory or some other location, but reaffirmed the US view that it was probably not man-made.

Did it come out of the virology lab in Wuhan? Did it occur in a wet market there in Wuhan? Did it occur somewhere else? And the answer to that is: We don�t know, Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference on Tuesday, adding the US government was looking into it.

The remarks stood in contrast to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo�s assessment on Sunday that there was a significant amount of evidence that the new coronavirus emerged from a Chinese laboratory.

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The US President Donald Trump�s administration has been sharpening his rhetoric against China since the new coronavirus emerged in Wuhan in December last year and grew into a global pandemic.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has reported that the White House is putting pressure on American intelligence agencies to provide evidence in support of Trump�s claims about the deadly virus being a laboratory construct.

In February, China�s Wuhan Institute of Virology dismissed rumors that the virus may have been artificially synthesized at one of its laboratories or perhaps escaped from such a facility.

Trump once again claimed on Thursday he was confident the coronavirus may have originated in a Chinese virology lab, but declined to elaborate.

SOURCE: PRESS TV