US says no place for Assad in Syria’s future, warns Russia

NO SANCTIONS Germany says all G7 states want to avoid military escalation and favour a political solution to conflict

President Bashar al-Assad should not be part of Syria’s future, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday, as G7 allies rejected a call for new sanctions on Damascus and its key ally Moscow.

Washington has stepped up the pressure on Russia to rein in Assad after a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held Syrian town that killed at least 87 civilians and triggered retaliatory US missile strikes on a Syrian air base.

As G7 foreign ministers urged a diplomatic push to end the sixyear conflict, Tillerson said: “Our hope is Bashar al-Assad will not be part of that future.”

With a growing gulf between the US and Assad’s main ally Russia, the G7 ministers threw their support behind Tillerson as he headed for vital talks on the Syrian conflict in Moscow. “To be clear, our military action was a direct response to the Assad regime’s barbarism,” Tillerson said at the G7 meeting in Italy.

“The United States’ priority in Syria and Iraq remains the defeat of ISIS,” he added.

“We want to relieve the suffering of the Syrian people. Russia can be a part of that future and play an important role,” Tillerson said. “Or Russia can maintain its alliance with this group, which we believe is not going to serve Russia’s interests longer term.”

The G7 ministers failed to agree on whether fresh sanctions should be imposed on Damascus and Moscow. “At the moment there is no consensus on new sanctions as an effective instrument,” Italy’s Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said, after his British counterpart Boris Johnson had raised the issue. After talks in the Tuscan city, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said: “All the G7 states want to avoid a military escalation and want a political solution without a new spiral of violence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday warned of future chemical weapons “provocations” in Syria that would be used to frame Kremlin ally Bashar al-Assad.

“We have information from various sources that such provocations, I cannot call them otherwise, are being prepared in other regions of Syria, including in the southern outskirts of Damascus, where they are again planning to throw some kind of substance and accuse Syrian official authorities of using it,” Putin said during a televised press conference.

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN WARNED OF FUTURE CHEMICAL WEAPONS “PROVOCATIONS” THAT WOULD BE USED TO FRAME KREMLIN ALLY BASHAR ALASSAD.