The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Russia must sever Assad links: leaders
Trump and May hold telephone talks and agree bid to persuade Putin to change tack
Theresa May and Donald Trump have agreed a “window of opportunity now exists” to persuade Russia that its links with Bashar Assad’s regime are no longer in its strategic interest as they discussed the situation in Syria.
The two leaders spoke about the crisis by telephone as the US President thanked the PM for her backing of his military strikes against Syrian government forces last week.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “The President thanked the Prime Minister for her support in the wake of last week’s US military action...
“The Prime Minister and the President agreed that a window of opportunity now exists in which to persuade Russia that its alliance with Assad is no longer in its strategic interest.
“They agreed that US Secretary of State (Rex) Tillerson’s visit to Moscow this week provides an opportunity to make progress towards a solution which will deliver a lasting political settlement.”
The Prime Minister, who is on a short walking holiday in Wales, is being kept up to date on events in Syria.
Mr Trump ordered a series of missile strikes last week in response to the deaths of more than 80 people, including children, during a chemical attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.
The US President’s spokesman Sean Spicer warned yesterday that further action would be considered in certain circumstances.
“When you watch babies and children being gassed, and suffer under barrel bombs, you are instantaneously moved to action. I think this President has made it very clear that if those actions were to continue, further action will definitely be considered by the United States.”
The move came as foreign secretary Boris Johnson warned that senior Russian military officers involved in coordinating President Assad’s campaign of repression against his own people could face international sanctions.
At a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Lucca, Italy, Mr Johnson issued a fresh appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin to abandon his backing for his Syrian ally following last week’s chemical weapons attack.
He said if the Russians continued to support the regime in Damascus, they would be “contaminated” by its actions and could find themselves the target of new international sanctions.
“We 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 who have been involved in co-ordinating the Syrian military efforts and are thereby contaminated by the appalling behaviour of the Assad regime,” Mr Johnson told reporters.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has used a visit to a Second World War memorial in Italy to declare that the US will stand up to aggressors who harm civilians.
Opening his visit to Italy, Mr Tillerson travelled to Sant’Anna di Stazzema, the Tuscan village where the Nazis massacred more than 500 civilians during the Second World War.
As he laid a wreath at the site, he alluded to the chemical attack in Syria last week that triggered retaliatory US air strikes.
“We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world,” Mr Tillerson said.
Meanwhile, US senator John McCain has accused Russia of having co-operated with Syrian government forces in a chemical weapons attack that has killed more than 80 people, including more than a dozen children.
He said at a press conference that he believes “the Russians knew about chemical weapons because they were operating exactly from the same base”.
The Republican senator said the US launched cruise missile strikes last week against the Syrian base “in a response of a chemical attack”.
“I hope that this behaviour by Syria, in what clearly is co-operation with Russia and Syria together, will never happen again,” he said.
Mr McCain said the US should destroy Syria’s air force as part of stopping President Bashar Assad from repeating such attacks.