Russia bears the ultimate responsibility for suspected chemical weapons attacks committed by the Syrian regime, the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, has said.

Tillerson’s comments came a day after reports of a fresh chemical weapons attack in the rebel enclave of East Ghouta, which injured more than 20 people, most of them children.

Speaking at a conference in Paris on Tuesday aimed at stepping up international pressure on perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks, Tillerson condemned Russia for “shielding” its Syrian ally against punishment for its actions.



His remarks came after the US announced last week that its forces will remain in Syria indefinitely, infuriating Moscow. They are also likely to raise tensions ahead of fresh rounds of talks in Vienna and Russia over the next fortnight aiming to find a political solution for the seven-year civil war.

“Only yesterday more than 20 civilians, most of them children, were victims of an apparent chlorine gas attack,” Tillerson said of the incident, which left victims struggling to breathe. He added that such attacks “raise serious concerns that Bashar al-Assad may be continuing to use chemical weapons against his own people”.

Damascus has been repeatedly accused of using chemical weapons, with the United Nations among those blaming government forces for an April 2017 sarin gas attack on the opposition-held village of Khan Sheikhun which left more than 80 people dead.

Tillerson said Russia was in violation of a 2013 agreement it made with the US on the removal of chemical weapons from Syria and is helping the Syrian government to breach the Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans their use.

The Paris conference of diplomats from 29 countries had been convened to push for sanctions and criminal charges against the perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria and other countries.



Russia twice used its UN veto in November to prevent an extension of an international expert inquiry into chemical attacks in Syria. Russia denies shielding Syria at the UN, claiming its investigations into chemical weapons attacks in Syria had not produced conclusive evidence and were biased.



“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 told reporters.

“There is simply no denying that Russia, by shielding its Syrian ally, has breached its commitments to the US as a framework guarantor. At a bare minimum, Russia must stop vetoing, or at the very least abstain, from future security council votes on this issue,” he added.

Between 2012 and 2017, there were more than 130 reported chemical attacks in Syria, with the majority attributed to the Assad regime. UN inspections have found the Syrian regime culpable in two specific cases, although it was suspected of being responsible for many more. The Islamic State group has also been accused of using mustard gas in Syria and Iraq.

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Nikki Haley, the US envoy to the UN, said Russia’s actions had “sent a dangerous message to the world – one that not only said chemical weapons use is acceptable, but also that those who use chemical weapons don’t need to be identified or held accountable”.



On Tuesday, France also announced it was sanctioning 25 people and companies over their links to Syria’s chemical weapons programme, promising an end to impunity over their use. The list included businesses based in Beirut, Damascus and Paris, and they will now face asset freezes.

Tuesday’s Paris summit was largely convened by President Emmanuel Macron in the face of a repeated Russian use of its veto at the UN security council to reject the findings of independent UN inquiries into the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Syrians bury victims of a suspected gas attack in Khan Sheikhun, a rebel-held town in Idlib province, in April 2017. Photograph: Fadi Al-Halabi/AFP/Getty Images

Diplomats, mainly from Europe and the Middle East, committed to sharing information and compiling a consolidated list of individuals or entities implicated in the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The west has repeatedly said the use of chemical weapons is a red line that cannot be crossed, but has been haphazard its response to such breaches.

“Faced by the recent banalisation of the proliferation and use of these odious arms, it is necessary to act,” the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, told the conference. “On this we will be judged by history.”

Andrew Lapsley, an official representing the UK Foreign Office, said it was vital that “a 100-year taboo on the use of chemical weapons was not lost”.

The French initiative sets out few plans for how those identified in aiding the use of chemical weapons will be prosecuted. Last summer Carla del Ponte, the veteran war crimes prosecutor, quit the UN Commission of Inquiry into Syria, saying she had no confidence that war crimes in Syria would ever be prosecuted. She was replaced by an Egyptian human rights lawyer, Hanny Megally.



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Last year, the joint mission created by the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found the Syrian regime responsible for the sarin gas attack against Khan Sheikhun village in April 2017, which led to a US Tomahawk missile attack on the Syrian air base that destroyed a fifth of the Syrian air force.

The OPCW estimated that the regime did not fully dismantle its chemical weapons stockpiles, despite commitments made in 2013. Russia had stepped in to oversee the destruction after the US and UK held back from airstrikes to punish alleged use of chemical weapons.

In a statement last Friday, the Russian foreign ministry said the Syrian government had no motive in using such weapons since it was anyway winning the war.

Moscow, backed by Iran and Turkey, has organised talks in the Russian city of Sochi next week aimed at finding a political resolution to the war. That effort is running parallel to talks overseen by the UN, with the latest round due in Vienna on Thursday and Friday.

The talks have so far failed to make progress in ending a war that has left more than 340,000 people dead.

Tillerson said that “Russia’s failure to resolve the chemical weapons issue in Syria calls into question its relevance to the resolution of the overall crisis.”