US missile strike ‘cosmetic’ if Assad stays in power: Turkey

BEIRUT / AP

Turkey described the US missile attack on an air base as a “cosmetic intervention” unless it removes President Bashar Assad from power, while the Syrian leader’s strong ally Iran called on Saturday for the formation of an international fact-finding committee to investigate the chemical weapons attack in a northern Syrian town that killed scores of people and trigged the American attack. The statements by Assad’s opponents and backers came as warplanes struck the northern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun where the chemical attack killed 87 people earlier this week. The air raid killed a woman and wounded her son, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani called for the formation of an international fact-finding committee to investigate the chemical weapons attack. State television reported Rouhani’s statement quoting him as insisting that the committee must be impartial and “must not be headed by Americans.”
Rouhani said that “neutral countries should come and assess to make it clear where the chemical weapons came from.” Iran is one of Assad’s strongest backers since the country’s crisis began six years ago leaving some 400,000 people dead, half the country’s population displaced and more than five million as refugees in neighboring countries.
The chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday triggered a US missile attack two days later that struck a Syrian air base in central Syria with 59 missiles, killing nine people. Syria’s government denied it carried out any chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun, and Russia’s Defense Ministry said the toxic agents were released when a Syrian airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons arsenal and munitions factory on the town’s eastern outskirts. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara sees the US intervention in Syria as appropriate but not enough.
“If this intervention is limited only to an air base, if it does not continue and if we don’t remove the regime from heading Syria, then this would remain a cosmetic intervention,” said Cavusoglu in the southern city of Antalya. Cavusoglu, whose country is a strong backer of the Syrian opposition, said the most ideal process will be a political solution that leads to a transitional government accepted by all Syrians as soon as possible. He said that for that “this oppressive Assad needs to go.”
Cavusoglu said after the transitional government takes over, it will be followed with elections in which Syrians in the country and abroad can vote. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson cancelled a planned trip to Russia because of fast-moving events in Syria. Johnson said on Saturday the situation in Syria has changed “fundamentally” following a chemical weapons attack on civilians and a US missile strike on a Syrian airfield.
Johnson condemned Russia’s continued defense of Assad “even after the chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians.”
He had planned to travel to Russia on Monday on a trip intended to start fresh dialogue with the Russian government. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans meet with G-7 foreign ministers in Europe next week before going on to Moscow. Johnson says Tillerson will be able to give a “clear and coordinated message to the Russians.” In the capital Damascus, dozens of Syrian students gathered outside the offices of the United Nations to protest the US missile attack.
The protesters held banners and chanted anti-American slogans on Saturday such as “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
One of the banners they carried read: “The Iraqi scenario will not be repeated in Syria.” They were referring to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq after Washington accused Saddam Hussein of hiding weapons of mass destruction — a belief that later turned out to be incorrect.