France is urging Russia to join a push for a political solution in Syria after joint US, French and British attacks on Syrian chemical weapons sites.<\/p>\n
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in an interview published Sunday in the Journal du Dimanche newspaper that \u201cwe should join our efforts to promote a political process in Syria that would allow a way out of the crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
France has continued to talk regularly with Russia even as East-West tensions have grown.<\/p>\n
French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, hours before the Western missile strikes.<\/p>\n
Western countries blamed Syria\u2019s government for a chemical attack on a rebel-held area earlier this month that killed more than 40 people. The Syrian government and its ally Russia denied the allegations.<\/p>\n
Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) chemical watchdog began their investigation Sunday at the site of an alleged chemical attack near Damascus, a senior official said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact-funding team arrived in Damascus on Saturday and is due to go to Douma on Sunday,\u201d Deputy Foreign Minister Ayman Soussan said.<\/p>\n
A delegation of experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in the Hague, is tasked with investigating an April 7 attack on Douma, just east of Damascus. Western powers say chemical substances, most likely chlorine and sarin, were used in the attack and killed at least 40 civilians.<\/p>\n
The alleged attack, which Damascus and its Russian ally have denied ever happened, prompted an unprecedented wave of missile strikes by the United States, France and Britain yesterday.<\/p>\n
Soussan reiterated a pledge by the Syrian government that the chemical experts would be allow to investigate unimpeded.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will ensure they can work professionally, objectively, impartially and free of any pressure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
There are no plans as yet to repeat missile strikes on Syria, but Britain will consider further action if President Bashar al-Assad again uses chemical weapons against his people, foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday.<\/p>\n
In a show of support for Prime Minister Theresa May\u2019s decision to join the US and France in attacking chemical weapons facilities in Syria on Saturday, her one-time political rival Johnson said it was the right thing to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
France is urging Russia to join a push for a political solution in Syria after joint US, French and British attacks on Syrian chemical weapons sites. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in an interview published Sunday in the Journal du Dimanche newspaper that \u201cwe should join our efforts to promote a political process […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28195,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28193\/revisions\/28195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}