G7 states reach no deal on UK call for further Syria, Russia

Foreign ministers from Group of Seven (G7) major industrialised nations reached no agreement on a British suggestion that sanctions be tightened against Syria and Russia, Italy’s foreign minister said on Tuesday.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had said ahead of the two-day G7 meeting that he wanted to discuss imposing fresh sanctions over last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack in a rebel-held area by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s air force.

Western countries blame Assad for the attack, which killed 87 people. He has denied involvement and Russia, which is backing the Damascus government in its six-year-old war with rebels, has stood firmly by its ally.

Italy, which hosted the G7 gathering in Tuscany, said the idea did not win broad support. “There is no consensus at this time for new sanctions as an efficient method to reach our goal,” Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano told reporters.

“There are obviously different opinions, and I am referring to my colleague Boris Johnson, who raised the issue,” he said, adding: “The position of the G7 is very clear. We support the sanctions that have already been introduced.”

Italian officials estimate that sanctions imposed on Russia after its 2014 annexation of Crimea have cost Italy some four billion euros in lost business, and Rome has pushed back on previous attempts to impose fresh penalties on Moscow.

Alfano said the G7 did not want to put Russia in a corner, but rather sought a constructive relationship with Moscow.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault suggested the question was given little attention by Johnson’s counterparts from the United States, Germany, Canada, Italy, France and Japan. “The question wasn’t mentioned by anyone, except Boris Johnson, but we didn’t talk about it any further,” Ayrault said.

However, speaking later to British television, Johnson said there had been an agreement on support for further sanctions if evidence can be gathered against those involved in last week’s poison gas attack on a rebel Syrian town that killed 87 people.

Johnson said Britain and its European partners would await the outcome of an investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

“There was a very wide measure of agreement last night that ... if we can show complicity by those Russian officers who are helping the Syrian military operation, then they should also be sanctionable as well,” he told the BBC.

Johnson also said there was no evidence that Russia knew of plans for a gas attack.

“Did they know that Assad was going to unleash chemical weapons? We have no evidence for that, we don’t know whether the Russians were involved at all,” Johnson told Sky News.

“It may very well be that they (Russia) have simply been betrayed by their client, by the guy they have been backing.”

 Hundreds protest in Syria

Hundreds of Syrian students gathered on Tuesday outside the United Nations headquarters in Damascus to protest last week’s US strike on a government air base.

Demonstrators waved the two-star flag of the Syrian government and pictures of President Bashar al-Assad outside the UN’s office in the Mazzeh neighbourhood of the Syrian capital.

Their placards read “Iraq will not happen again, this is Assad’s Syria,” and “Trump supports terrorism.”

Some protesters chanted, “Death to America, death to Israel!”

US warships on Friday fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a central Syrian air base from which Washington believes government jets launched a chemical attack that killed at least 87 civilians.

The Syrian government denied that it used toxic substances, saying it struck an arms depot used by militias and describing the US strike as “foolish and irresponsible behaviour”.

“We came to denounce the American strike,” said Ayyad Talab, head of the university students’ branch in the National Syrian Students Union (NSSU), which organised the protest.

“We want to say that we are ready to defend our country, armed with our work, our minds, and our ideas and with our souls if necessary,” he told AFP.

source: Alarabiya