Western leaders mull tougher sanctions on Syrians, Russians

Bloomberg

Western powers are weighing new sanctions on Russia and Syria for a deadly chemical attack last week, as leaders seek to present a united front ahead of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to Moscow.
“The game has now been changed and it’s important that message should be heard from the Americans to the Russians,” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told reporters on the first of two days of talks between foreign ministers of the Group of Seven nations in the ancient Tuscan town of Lucca.
“It’s very important in these circumstances for the world to present a united front and for there to be absolutely no ambiguity about the message,” Johnson said, when asked why he chose to cancel talks due in Moscow and attend the G-7 in Italy instead.
The U.S. strike, in response to the April 4 attack that killed dozens of people, including many children, was Washington’s first intervention against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and pushed the country’s six-year civil war to the top of the agenda for the G-7 meeting. Ministers were also expected to discuss countering terrorism, grappling with North Korea’s nuclear program and the European refugee crisis.
Earlier on Monday, Tillerson made a pledge at a ceremony paying tribute to the victims of a Nazi wartime massacre in the village of Sant’Anna di Stazzema, north of Lucca. “We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world,” he said. “This place will serve as an inspiration to us all.”

New Sanctions
Immediately after the US air strikes, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the US would soon announce new sanctions on Syria aimed at deterring countries and companies from doing business with Assad’s government.
Johnson said G-7 ministers “will be discussing the possibility of further sanctions, certainly, on some of the Syrian military figures and indeed on some of the Russian military figures.”
European Union nations, the U.S. and Turkey have frozen the assets of dozens of Syrians, as well as foreign nationals doing business with them, to punish the government for its actions in Syria’s conflict.
Tillerson will travel to Moscow Tuesday afternoon for meetings with top officials, possibly including President Vladimir Putin. He will look to gauge Russia’s willingness to work together to fight IS and rein in Assad, whom Moscow supports.
Russia faces a choice between sticking to a “toxic regime that poisons its own people and indeed is poisoning the reputation of Russia,” Johnson said, or working with the rest of the world to find a political solution.

US Priority
In an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that aired on April 9, Tillerson said the US priority remains defeating IS, rather than forcing Assad out. “I think the president has been quite clear: First and foremost, we must defeat IS,” he said. After that, he said, “we can navigate a political outcome in which the Syrian people, in fact, will determine Bashar al-Assad’s fate.”
Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said he had invited “other countries which have a similar view to ours on Syria.” The aim is “to reflect on what is the best strategy to give Syria peace and security.” Alfano called the Syria meeting in agreement with foreign ministers Johnson, Sigmar Gabriel of Germany, and Jean-Marc Ayrault of France, the ministry official said.
“We are in discussions with our partners to see if we can bring further pressure to bear on the regime and those who are supporting it,” including Russia, British Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman James Slack told reporters on Monday. Slack said he saw “no long term future” for Assad in Syria.
Also speaking at Monday’s ceremony, Federica Mogherini, EU foreign-policy chief, said “there is no military solution to this war and the negotiations in Geneva must start again with the support of all of us: Europe is the one which is trying to get the Syrians to sit at the same table.”

McCain: Russia cooperated
with Syria in chemical attack

BELGRADE / AP

US Senator John McCain accused Russia on Monday of having cooperated with Syrian government forces in a chemical weapons attack that has killed more than 80 people, including more than a dozen children. The Republican senator said at a press conference in Belgrade that he believes “the Russians knew about chemical weapons because they were operating exactly from the same base.”
He said the US launched cruise missile strikes last week against the Syrian base “in a response of a chemical attack.”
“I hope that this behavior by Syria, in what clearly is cooperation with Russia and Syria together, will never happen again,” he said.
McCain said the U.S. should take out Syria’s air force as part of stopping Syrian President Bashar Assad from repeating such attacks in the future. “I would prevent Bashar Assad from flying from his airfields if he doesn’t renounce the use of these weapons,” the former American airman said. “The United States should first tell Russia that this kind of a war crime is unacceptable in the world today.”
He said the upcoming visit by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Moscow should “lead to an agreement on the part of the Russians that they will not allow Syria to ever again use chemical weapons.”