U.S. President Barack Obama speaks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande at the second working meeting of the G20 Leaders' Summit on Friday. Sergei Guneev/Host Photo Agency via Getty Images

President Barack Obama told reporters Friday that a "majority of the room" at a Thursday dinner during the Group of 20 summit was comfortable with the United States' conclusion that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime is responsible for an Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack that the U.S. says killed more than 1,400 people in Damascus.

Despite that purported sentiment, world leaders gathered at the economic summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, have not been able to reach a consensus over the U.S. push to take military action against Syria for the alleged gas attack.

"When there is a breach this brazen and the international community is paralyzed and doesn't act," international norms like the ban on chemical weapons begin to unravel, Obama said.

According to a White House statement, 11 of the G-20 nations condemn the chemical weapons attack and are urging a strong interantional response. As the world waits for results from U.N. inspectors who are trying to sort out the circumstances of the attack, Russia and China have effectively blocked any resolution in the Security Council, complicating an international response.

Russian President Vladmir Putin, one of the Assad regime's strongest supporters, and the host of the summit, called the chemical weapons attack a "frameup" by opposition forces as a way to force Western military intervention in the region, and said any country that would attack without a United Nations Security Council resolution would be "outlaws" of international norms.

Samantha Power, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., warned that the alleged use of sarin gas by Assad is only an example of the embattled leader's deadly capabilities.

Assad "has barely put a dent in his enormous stockpile" of chemical weapons, Power said at the Center for American Progress.