Russia warns of war if West strikes Syria
Likely targets of US-led strikes
paris — Russia warned the West on Friday against any “dangerous” moves on Syria as its rivals hesitated over possible strikes on the country which Moscow has warned could lead to “war”.
“The most important thing is to refrain from ill-considered and dangerous actions that would constitute a gross violation of the UN Charter and would have unpredictable consequences,” Putin’s office said in a statement after he and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by telephone. —
paris — Russia warned the West on Friday against any “dangerous” moves on Syria as its rivals hesitated over possible strikes on the country which Moscow has warned could lead to “war”.
The UN Security Council was to meet again on Friday, at Russia’s request, to try to defuse the standoff over accusations that the Syrian regime waged a chemical attack on civilians.
US President Donald Trump appeared to back away from earlier threats of imminent action and France’s Emmanuel Macron on Friday called for stepped-up talks with Moscow.
Russia repeated its warnings against an escalation.
“The most important thing is to refrain from ill-considered and dangerous actions that would constitute
The most important thing is to refrain from ill-considered and dangerous actions that would be a gross violation of the UN Charter
Putin’s office statement
a gross violation of the UN Charter and would have unpredictable consequences,” Putin’s office said in a statement after he and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by telephone.
After a meeting with national security advisers on Thursday, the White House said it had not yet decided how to respond to last week’s suspected chemical attack which the US, France and Britain blame on Bashar Al Assad’s regime. Macron told Putin he wanted to “intensify” talks in order to “bring peace and stability to Syria”, the French President’s office said in a statement.
A White House briefing on a call between Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May said that they “continued their discussion of the need for a joint response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons”.
A Downing Street spokesperson added: “They agreed it was vital that the use of chemical weapons did not go unchallenged, and on the need to deter the further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.” But US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis struck a cautious note, telling lawmakers that the need to “stop the murder of innocent people” had to be weighed up against the risk of things “escalating out of control”. —