Johnson calls for Assad action over gas attack
BORIS JOHNSON has made a fresh appeal for international action against Bashar al-assad after a chemical weapons watchdog ruled that an attack in Syria which killed more than 74 people used sarin nerve gas.
The Foreign Secretary said the Syrian president’s brutal regime was behind the atrocity and insisted the findings of the inquiry “cannot be ignored”. In the wake of the massacre, Russia blocked a British-backed bid at the UN Security Council to condemn the attack and Mr Johnson failed to secure agreement on targeted sanctions at a meeting with G7 counterparts.
Mr Johnson urged international leaders to “unite behind the need to hold those responsible for this atrocity to account”.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said the deadly attack on rebel-held Khan Sheikhoun “can only be determined as the use of sarin, as a chemical weapon” after it analysed samples from victims and survivors.
Its report did not conclude who was responsible for the atrocity but the United Nations will now use the findings in its own assessment. Mr Assad said the attack was a “fabrication” to justify US missile strikes.
Mr Johnson said: “This confirmation cannot be ignored. The UN-OPCW joint investigative mechanism will now work to identify who was responsible.
“As I have said previously, the UK’S own assessment is that the Assad regime almost certainly carried out this abominable attack. I urge our international partners to unite behind the need to hold those responsible for this atrocity to account.”
♦ A child, believed to be two years old, was killed and seven Lebanese soldiers wounded yesterday when five militants blew themselves up and a sixth threw a grenade during raids on two refugee camps near the Syrian border.