THE US missile attack on a Syrian airbase is an act of aggression under a far-fetched pretext and is reminiscent of the situation in Iraq in 2003, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.
He added: ‘This is reminiscent of the situation in 2003, when the US and the UK, along with some of their allies, invaded Iraq.’ Russia will demand the truth of the Idlib events, Lavrov stressed.
‘I don’t know when we will be able to find out how the US made the decision to attack Syria. But we must demand the truth to be unveiled and we will do it,’ the Russian top diplomat said.
‘President Putin considers the US strikes against Syria an act of aggression against a sovereign country violating the norms of international law, and under a trumped-up pretext at that,’ said Putin’s spokesman Peskov.
He noted that the Syrian army has no stockpiles of chemical weapons. ‘The fact that all Syrian armed forces’ chemical weapons stockpiles were eliminated was registered and confirmed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a specialised UN unit,’ he highlighted.
‘Putin also sees the strikes on Syria by the US as an attempt to divert the attention of the international community from numerous civilian casualties in Iraq. Washington’s move substantially impairs Russian-US relations, which are in a deplorable state as it is,’ Peskov emphasised.
• Jeremy Corbyn MP, leader of the Labour Party, speaking in response to the US air strikes on a Syrian air base, said: ‘The US missile attack on a Syrian government air base risks escalating the war in Syria still further.
‘Tuesday’s horrific chemical attack was a war crime which requires urgent independent UN investigation and those responsible must be held to account. But unilateral military action without legal authorisation or independent verification risks intensifying a multi-sided conflict that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people.
‘What is needed instead is to urgently reconvene the Geneva peace talks and unrelenting international pressure for a negotiated settlement of the conflict. The terrible suffering of the Syrian people must be brought to an end as soon as possible and every intervention must be judged on what contribution it makes to that outcome.
‘The British government should urge restraint on the Trump administration and throw its weight behind peace negotiations and a comprehensive political settlement.’
