United States (US) Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Nikki Haley said in an interview that she sees regime change in Syria as one of the Trump administration’s priorities in the country wracked by civil war.
Defeating the militant Islamic State (IS) group, pushing Iranian influence out of Syria, and the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are priorities for Washington, Haley said in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union which will air in full on Sunday.
“We don’t see a peaceful Syria with Assad in there,” Haley said.
The comments represented a departure from what Haley had said before the United States hit a Syrian air base with 59 Tomahawk missiles on Thursday in retaliation for what it said was a chemical weapons attack by Assad’s forces on Syrian civilians.
President Donald Trump ordered the missile strike after watching television images of infants suffering from chemical weapons injuries.
Nearly 90 people were killed in the massive strike which marked a dramatic escalation in American involvement in Syria’s six-year civil war.
“You pick and choose your battles and when we’re looking at this, it’s about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out,” Haley had told reporters on March 30, just days before dozens of Syrian civilians died from chemical weapons injuries.
Britain said Russia bore responsibility by proxy for civilian deaths in Syria caused by the chemical weapons attack in which at least 70 were killed.
British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon criticised Russia’s support of Assad, describing the chemical attack as a war crime that happened “on their watch”.
“By proxy Russia is responsible for every civilian death last week,” Fallon, whose government voiced support for US President Donald Trump’s decision to target the Syrian air base, wrote in the Sunday Times newspaper.
“If Russia wants to be absolved of responsibility for future attacks, [President] Vladimir Putin needs to enforce commitments, dismantle Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal for good and get fully engaged” with the UN peace process on Syria.
Damascus and Moscow have denied Syrian forces were behind the gas attack but Western countries dismissed their explanation that chemicals leaked from a rebel weapons depot after an air strike.
Russia has warned that the US missile strikes could have serious consequences for the region. The missile strikes catapulted Washington into confrontation with Russia, which has advisers on the ground aiding its close ally Assad.
Russia, Iran vow to keep battling ‘terrorists’ in Syria
The army chiefs of Assad’s closest allies ─ Russian and Iranian ─ vowed Saturday to keep battling “terrorists” in Syria.
General Valery Gerasimov and Major General Mohammad Bagheri spoke by phone and “condemned the American operation against a Syrian airbase which is an aggression against an independent country”, Iran’s state news agency IRNA said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Washington of “playing the terrorism game”, during his first phone talks with his US counterpart Rex Tillerson since the US air strikes on Syria.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani Saturday criticised his US counterpart Donald Trump for the missile attack on the Syrian airbase.
“This man who is now in office in America claimed that he wanted to fight terrorism but today all terrorists in Syria are celebrating the US attack,” he said.
As the Arab League on Saturday warned against a “dangerous escalation” in Syria, influential Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr called on Assad to step down and on Washington and Moscow to stop intervening in the conflict.
“I would consider it fair for President Bashar al-Assad to resign and leave power, allowing the dear people of Syria to avoid the scourge of war and terrorist oppression,” he said.
‘Intolerable aggression’
Speaking on a US talkshow to be aired Sunday, Rex Tillerson insisted he had no concerns about possible retaliation by Moscow as “Russians were never targeted” in the strike and said defeating the IS group was the top priority for the US in Syria.
“Once the ISIS threat has been reduced or eliminated, I think we can turn our attention directly to stabilising the situation in Syria,” he told CBS television’s “Face the Nation” in a clip released ahead of its air time.
“We’re hopeful that we can prevent a continuation of the civil war and that we can bring the parties to the table to begin the process of political discussions,” he said, noting that would require the participation of Assad’s regime and its allies.
More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict erupted in March 2011 with anti-government demonstrations.
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