Tillerson: Russia must choose between Assad, US

“We remember the events of August 12, 1944. that occurred in Sant’Anna”.

The White House separately suggested that barrel bombs dropped by Assad’s forces could be one of the military actions in Syria that could prompt a U.S. response – if chemicals were involved.

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 worldwide sanctions.

Officially, Russia says it’s in Syria to fight ISIS.

OPCW has dispatched a fact-finding mission to Syria and the UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) is also investigating alleged chemical weapons use to determine who is responsible.

But he stopped short of directly calling for the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying the U.S.

USA officials say the chemical weapons were stored there and that those elements add to the conclusion that Russian Federation was complicit in the attack.

“We have drafted that resolution deliberately with consensus in mind”, said Rycroft.

Tillerson says the USA sees no future role for Assad in Syria, but he says the US isn’t pre-supposing how Assad’s departure will occur.

Russia’s top diplomat accused the United States of carrying out an unlawful attack against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.

Tillerson said that it is “clear Russian Federation has failed to uphold the agreements that had been entered into for multiple UN Security Council resolutions”.

“As you know, President Trump used to believe that Congressional approval was needed for any kind of military strike in Syria”.

“It can be said that the level of trust at the working level, especially at the military level, has not become better but most likely has degraded”, Putin said in an interview broadcast Wednesday by state television channel Mir.

The Kremlin pledged in 2013 to remove or destroy – with the blessing of the Obama administration – Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.

He said Russian Federation was set to appeal to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and “call on the global community to thoroughly investigate such incidents”. Tillerson answered a question about effecting regime change by saying the USA was organizing a coalition to do just that.

The United States has concluded that Russian Federation knew ahead of time that Syria would launch a chemical weapons attack last week, a senior US official says.

A two-day summit of G7 ministers in Italy ended in division over Syria, as the United Kingdom proposed – without success – sanctions against Syrian and Russian military figures over the chemical attack. “And the missile strike really came as a shock and will overshadow the talks”.

Tillerson said there was no room for both. The next step would be to use United Nations talks to negotiate a political transition that could include Assad leaving power.

The strike was the first time Washington had intervened directly against the regime of Assad, who is fighting a six-year civil war with the backing of Russian Federation and Iran.

The White House said Trump had spoken with May and by telephone. “I think that’s the offer that Rex Tillerson is going to be making, and I think it’s a powerful one”.

Putin also said some Western countries have publicly supported last week’s US airstrikes on Syria because they are eager to improve ties with President Donald Trump. It’s unclear if Putin and Tillerson will meet. Central Command, whose forces executed the cruise missile attack, which Votel said “severely degraded” Syria’s ability to use the airfield.