TRUDEAU: ASSAD’S DAYS ARE NUMBERED

Russia tried to cover up war crime, U.S. says

COURSEULLES-SUR-MER, FRANCE• Bash ar Assad’s days as president of Syria are numbered, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested Monday as the spectre of escalating conflict in the Middle East loomed large amid the lingering ghosts of two world wars.

The way forward in Syria can’t include Assad, whose recent chemical attack against his own people were abetted by those countries — Russia and Iran — that have allowed him to remain in power, Trudeau told a news conference.

On Monday, a senior U.S. official said the United States had concluded that Russia knew in advance of Syria’s chemical weapons attack last week — and had later bombed a hospital in an attempt to cover up the war crime.

The official said a Russian- operated drone flew over a hospital in Syria as victims of the attack were rushing to get treatment.

Hours after the drone left, a Russian- made fighter jet bombed the hospital in what American officials believed was an attempt to cover up the usage of chemical weapons.

The official said the presence of the drone couldn’t have been a coincidence, and that Russia must have known that victims were seeking treatment.

During a visit Monday to Juno Beach to commemorate Canada’s Second World War dead, Trudeau said, “Countries that have been supportive of the Assad regime bear some of the responsibility for the chemical attacks on innocents.”

But he added that Russia must also be part of the solution for bringing peace to Syria.

“And those countries must also be part of the solution as we hold the Assad regime to account and as we move tangibly forward as an international community to ending this conflict in Syria.

“There is no question that anyone who is guilty of the types of war crimes against innocents, against children, that Assad and his regime are needs to be held to account.”

Trudeau was, however, non-committal when it came to the question of how to remove Assad from power.

Canada remains open to imposing new sanctions against Russia.

Foreign ministers from the G7 industrialized nations met Monday to try to forge a common response to the deadly chemical attack in Syria, with new sanctions against Russian backers of Assad one of the options on the table.

G7 diplomats sitting down for talks in the centuries-old Ducal Palace in Lucca, Italy, hope to use outrage over the attack and wide international support for the United States’ retaliatory missile strikes to push Russia to abandon Assad and join a new peace effort for Syria.

Members of the group also hope to gain a sense from U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of President Donald Trump’s next steps and foreign-policy goals.

Speaking after meeting with Tillerson, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said ministers “will be discussing the possibility of further sanctions, certainly, on some of the Syrian military figures and indeed on some of the Russian military figures.”

He said Russia had a choice: to continue backing the “toxic” Assad regime, “or to work with the rest of the world to find a solution for Syria, a political solution.”

Trudeau s aid he had spoken to his counterparts from France, the United Kingdom and Germany as well as Trump in recent days on how to deal with Syria.

The prime minister left no doubt that he considered Assad’s government responsible for last week’s chemical attack, which killed more than 80 people, including many children, in the Syrian province of Idlib.

Asked whether he feared the world was on the verge of a new war, Trudeau said the international community needed to come together more now than ever and address its challenges together.

“The raging civil war in Syria, the violent conflicts around the world,” he said, “require an international community that pulls together, that holds each other to account and that strives everyday not to repeat the terrible mistakes of the past.”

The U. S. fired 59 cruise missiles against a Syrian airfield last week in retaliation for the chemical attack, sparking tough talk and warnings from all sides.

The United States is suggesting its true purpose was to send a political message: that long-term peace in Syria will require changes in government, and the countries backing Assad should stop.

“I think what you are going to see is pressure on the political solution,” said Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.