Tillerson: Russia 'bears responsibility' for suspected chemical attack in Syria

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday denounced the recent suspected chemical attack in Syria and said “Russia ultimately bears responsibility” for the victims because it has enabled President Bashar Assad.

Rescue teams and activists said Monday that Assad's government used a poisonous gas on Syrian civilians in an attack that affected at least 20 individuals, including some children, in a rebel-held region near Damascus.


Tillerson, speaking at a conference in Paris, called on the Syrian leader to cease the use of deadly weapons on civilians.

“The recent attacks in East Ghouta raise serious concerns that Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime may be continuing its use of chemical weapons against its own people,” Tillerson said.

The U.S.’s top diplomat added that while Assad is suspected of carrying out the attack, countries like Russia and its leader President Vladimir Putin were also culpable, the latest sign the Trump administration is growing more willing to put pressure on Russia.

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“Whoever conducted the attacks, Russia ultimately bears responsibility for the victims in East Ghouta and countless other Syrians targeted with chemical weapons since Russia became involved in Syria,” Tillerson said.

Tillerson’s remarks on Russia came after President Donald Trump appeared to toughen his tone on Putin during an interview with Reuters last week, after saying frequently that he wanted to strengthen ties with Moscow. Trump said in the interview that the country was “not helping us at all” in attempts to temper North Korea’s weapons testing.

“What China is helping us with, Russia is denting,” Trump said. “In other words, Russia is making up for some of what China is doing.”

Tillerson on Tuesday also stressed the need for the international community to deny “impunity to those who use or enable the use” of chemical weapons.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley declared in a statement Tuesday that the suspected attack was “yet another demonstration” of Syria’s “blatant disregard for international law and cruel indifference for the lives of its own people.”

"The United States will never stop fighting for the innocent Syrian children, women, and men who have become victims of their own government and those who continue to prop it up,” Haley said.

