Britain calls for Syria calm as Trump talks tough
BRITAIN attempted to quell the idea of military intervention against the Syrian government yesterday as Donald Trump said “something should happen” in retribution for the chemical weapons strike.
Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said that passing a United Nations resolution to investigate the suspected sarin attack by the regime of Bashar al-Assad that killed 86 people and left hundreds injured should be the top priority – not rushing into a new confrontation.
Mr Johnson said: “It is very important to try first to get out a new UN resolution.”
The US president last night ordered his defence staff to develop options for a military strike against regime targets, according to several sources.
“I think what Assad did is terrible,” Mr Trump said on board Air Force One. “I think what happened in Syria is a disgrace to humanity and he’s there, and I guess he’s running things, so something should happen.”
It is Mr Trump’s first major foreign policy test and James Mattis, the US defence secretary, flew to Florida last night to brief him on America’s military options, one of which would be cruise missile strikes from Navy ships.
In a complete reversal from his statement a week ago, Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, said he now saw “no role” for Assad in governing Syria in the future and urged Russia to
reconsider its support for the regime. Mr Tillerson said that “steps are under way” to work with international partners to build a coalition to remove Assad and promised a “serious response” to the Idlib attack from the United States.
However, America’s European allies urged caution and warned of the risk of becoming embroiled in another costly war in the region.
Jean-Marc Ayrault, the French foreign minister, said: “[The first stage] is not to go in ourselves, under the pretext that the US president may have a rush of blood to the head, and get onto a war footing.”
He added that the US response on Syria was still unclear, and that he was getting mixed messages from Mr Tillerson and Mr Mattis. “They’re not saying the same thing,” he said.
Any attempt by Washington to target the regime directly could see it come into confrontation with Assad’s main backer, Russia, which it will be looking to avoid.
Russia yesterday challenged Mr Trump to set out his strategy on Syria.
When asked if Moscow would reconsider its backing for Assad, Russia’s foreign ministry instead challenged the US to show its cards.
“Russia’s approach to Assad is clear. He is the legal president of an independent state. What is the US approach?” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
The US faced a similar dilemma after the last major chemical attack in Syria in 2013, when Barack Obama prepared plans to strike targets with sealaunched cruise missiles.
Mr Obama’s plans were thrown into disarray after British MPs rejected a motion designed to pave the way to au- thorising the UK’s participation in military action.
The White House decided not to take the unpalatable option of unilateral action without the support of its main ally. The Syrian opposition says the allies’ inaction has since allowed Assad to act with impunity.
Two US military officials told NBC News that the military had seen Syrian fixed-wing aircraft drop the bombs after the planes were caught on radar. However, the Syrian government continued yesterday to deny its role in Tuesday’s attack, repeating Russian claims that an air strike hit a rebel warehouse storing chemical agents. “I stress to you once again that our army has never used chemical weapons and will not use chemical weapons,” Walid Muallem, the country’s foreign ministry, said on state TV. “Not only against our civilians, our people, but also [we] will not use chemical weapons against the terrorists who are attacking our civilians with their mortar shells.”
Preliminary postmortem tests conducted by officials from the World Health Organisation on victims treated in Turkey indicated yesterday that the deadly nerve agent sarin was used in the attack, according to the country’s justice minister.
He said that results pointed to government responsibility, but did not elaborate.