- FO says all stakeholders need to work for a peaceful resolution of conflict
Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria on Friday said all stakeholders in Syria need to find and work towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict now in its seventh year.
“The people of Syria have suffered immensely,” he said, adding that a solution to the conflict needs to be devised. He said that Pakistan was a member of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and was against the use of chemical weapons.
“The use of chemical weapons by any side in the conflict is condemnable,” he said. On Thursday, the US military carried out a massive cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base in retaliation for a ‘barbaric chemical attack’ he blamed on President Bashar al-Assad.
The massive strike – the first direct US action against President Assad’s government and Trump’s biggest military decision since taking office – marked a dramatic escalation in American involvement in Syria’s six-year civil war.
Syria’s government has denied any use of chemical weapons and state media on Friday described the US strike which was reported to have pulverised the base and killed at least four servicemen as an act of aggression.
Russia too denounced the US action, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying President Vladimir Putin considered it aggression against a sovereign state that would inflict considerable damage on US-Russia ties. Trump announced the strike in a brief televised address delivered hours after the UN Security Council failed to agree on a probe into the suspected chemical attack.
