Seems to be no definitive answer from Capcom.
Fortunately for us, there is a definitive answer.
Before Biohazard RE:4 was released, Famitsu posted an interview in which it was confirmed that the remakes are a new timeline.
We also have a recent clarification from Hirabayashi that "Operation Javier" is a fact within the Biohazard universe, and although both The Darkside Chronicles and RE:4 recite this event in different ways, the new version is more relevant to the current story.
So the original games and remakes are both canon, like Fabiano said before. The reason why this statement gives a headache to many fans is that they are trying to frame the franchise into the Western idea of the canon, where a new product sometimes excludes the previous one, but Japan is a different "world" that doesn't live by the rules of foreign fandoms.
Capcom's idea of canon has always been consistent and has never changed since. For example, even the very first BIO in 1996 likewise showed us two irreconcilable worlds (Chris's and Jill's) where events could play out in different ways, but no result led to Rebecca and Barry surviving at the same time. This design taught us that game scenarios are interpretations of an incident that shouldn't be taken completely at face value, but for some reason we didn't learn this lesson.
The remake of Bio Hazard recited the same incident, but its lore is substantially distinct. Fans usually ignore the contradictions or are unaware of them, but they exist in the game because it essentially spawned a new continuity that Zero and the Chronicles series eventually developed. This continuity didn't replace the PS1 games, but overlapped them.
As did the new remakes.