USA attack on Syria air base crossed 'red lines': Assad allies

Adjust Comment Print

In March, Tillerson said that the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad from office is not a top priority for the United States anymore as the Syrian nation should determine Assad's fate.

"It just - if you look at his actions, if you look at the situation, it's going to be hard to see a government that's peaceful and stable with Assad", she said in remarks that were released ahead of the broadcast.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will press Russian Federation on its failure to prevent Syria's use of chemical weapons in meetings this week in Moscow, he said in interviews aired Sunday.

Haley told CNN in an interview that Trump and his administration were shown classified information proving that Syrian President Bashar Assad had been involved in the alleged chemical attack against civilians in Syria's Idlib.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani said the USA has been warned it crossed a "red line" with its missile strikes on Syria.

The United States has conducted air strikes against Islamic State, which controls territory in eastern and northern Syria, and a small number of USA troops are helping rebel militias.

"I think the real failure here has been Russia's failure to live up to its commitments under the chemical weapons agreements that were entered into in 2013", Tillerson said on ABC's This Week.

Earlier on Sunday, Mr Trump's national security adviser Herbert HR McMaster said defeating IS and removing the Syrian president were the country's dual goals.

The joint command centre also said the presence of USA troops in northern Syria where Washington has hundreds of special forces helping the Syrian Democratic Forces to oust Islamic State (IS) was "illegal" and that Washington had a long-term plan to occupy the area.

Centre taking steps to get Mallya back to India: Venkaiah Naidu
However, the flamboyant businessman, who once called himself "The King of Good Times", was released on bail within minutes. He further said that the government would persuade the UK Government to extradite the liquor baron from UK.

A day after Trump ordered 59 Tomahawk missiles to attack a Syrian-government airfield, Assad resumed missions from the al-Shayrat Air Base with planes that escaped the bombs, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The regional alliance said the USA cruise missile strikes will not deter their forces from "liberating" all of Syrian territory.

He said the United Kingdom continues to "deplore" Moscow's defence of Mr Assad's regime as he pulled out of talks with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon criticised Russia's support of Assad, describing the chemical attack as a war crime that happened "on their watch".

Johnson on Saturday called off a visit to Moscow in the wake of the "Syrian chemical weapons attack".

Mr Tillerson will visit Russian Federation this week to deliver a "clear and coordinated" message to the Kremlin, after Mr Johnson pulled out of a trip following conversations with Mr Trump's team.

Boris Johnson, the British foreign secretary, is pushing for the group, which comprises the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, to call for Russian Federation to drop backing for the country's president Bashar al-Assad or face tough new sanctions, The Times reported. "And saying, 'we are only going after chemical weapons areas, ' ignores the enormity of the problem", he said.

The cabinet minister's intervention comes as the West unleashes a new diplomatic drive on the back of the retaliatory missile strikes launched by Donald Trump's USA administration.

Comments