Foreign ministers from the G7 industrialized nations yesterday gathered for a meeting given urgency by the chemical attack in Syria and the US military response, with participants aiming to pressure Russia to end its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Last week’s nerve gas attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, which killed more than 80 people, stirred US President Donald Trump to strike for the first time at al-Assad’s forces, with US warships firing 59 cruise missiles at the Syrian air base from which the US believed the attack was launched.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson yesterday said at the site of a World War II-era Nazi massacre in central Italy that the US is rededicating itself to hold to account “any and all” who commit crimes against innocent people.
Photo: Reuters
Tillerson accompanied Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Angelino Alfano, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini and other officials to Santa’Anna di Stazzema, a site of Nazi atrocities where 560 civilians, including about 130 children, were killed during World War II.
Alfano said the massacre site was a reminder that “peace is not a given... That is why we are here to work all together for peace and liberty.”
Alfano on Sunday said that Europe’s broad support for the US military strikes had contributed to a “renewed harmony” between the US and its partners ahead of the first meeting of G7 foreign ministers since Trump took office.
“We need to remember that not 10 years ago, but 100 or 120 days ago, the concern in Europe was that the United States and the EU were moving apart,” Alfano told Sky TG24 on Sunday. “I welcome this renewed harmony.”
Officials are hoping that this can be leveraged to bring a new diplomatic push to end the six-year-old war in Syria.
Yesterday’s meeting in the Tuscan walled city of Lucca that brought together German Minister for Foreign Affairs Sigmar Gabriel, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida and their counterparts also comes amid an ongoing terror threat that was underscored by the Palm Sunday bombing of Coptic churches in Egypt claimed by the Islamic State group, and a truck attack in Stockholm on Friday.
Russia has plans to put forward a proposal yesterday for an independent and impartial investigation of the nerve gas attack, Gabriel spokesman Martin Schaefer said in Berlin.
Schaefer said Germany viewed it as “a good and important sign.”
Russia was kicked out of the G8 club after its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and assistance for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Tillerson is scheduled to travel to Russia after the G7 gathering.
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