Marise Payne says Trump administration has asked for no further commitment from Australia after attack on Syrian airbase

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Malcolm Turnbull has called on Moscow to pull Bashar al-Assad into line, referring to Syria as a client state of Russia.

“The onus is now on Russia to pull Assad into line,” Turnbull said in Papua New Guinea before flying to India for his first official visit. “Let’s be quite clear: the Assad regime is a client state of Russia.”

He played down tensions between the United States and Russia after the US cruise missile strikes on the Syrian airbase of Shayrat. But his comments came as Russia sent a warship armed with cruise missiles to join its battlegroup off the coast of Syria.

“The Americans have made it very clear that that is a one-off response,” Turnbull said. “They are not proposing to escalate or take further steps in the absence of any other action by the Syrian government.

“So the onus now is on Russia to ensure that Syria does not engage in any other provocative actions and that Russia itself does not engage in any other provocative actions.”

Earlier, the defence minister, Marise Payne, said the US has asked for nothing from Australia following the strike on a Syrian airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack.

Asked whether the government expected the US to ask for further support, Payne said Australia was already advising and assisting personnel in Iraq, building partner capacity operations at Taji in Iraq and operating an air task group.

“We are making a considerable contribution,” Payne said. “I know that is acknowledged by Iraq particularly, by the United States and other members of the coalition.

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“I will be meeting with senior members of the coalition again in the coming weeks and we will expect to discuss these activities further. But at this point in time, that is a very significant contribution Australia is making.”

The US vice-president, Mike Pence, is due to visit Australia on 22 April 22, as part of a regional tour of Asia Pacific countries including South Korea, Japan and Indonesia.



Payne called for a United Nations brokered solution to the impasse in Syria, reiterated Australia’s support for the strike and underlined that she could not see a solution that involved Bashar Al-Assad.



“That is where the responsibility lies in relation to the actions of Russia and Iran, to work within the structures and the resolutions of the UN security council to identify a political solution to this impasse,” Payne said.

“The prime minister observed that we struggle to see a solution that has the continuing involvement of Bashar al-Assad in it.

“I don’t think that’s an unreasonable proposition to put, given what we’ve seen in recent days.”



Payne rejected suggestions the strike should have come earlier, saying every US administration had to make their own decisions.



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“In this instance the United States administration has seen the attack on those families, on children, on infants and adults and said, ‘this is not acceptable, we are going to take this action’,” Payne said.

She said the US had advised allies and engaged with those in the region and forewarned “in the deconfliction sense” the Russians who were at the location.

Payne rejected Moscow’s suggestion that the Assad regime may not be responsible for the chemical attack.

“They are clearly ignoring the evidence, which is available worldwide.”