Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile said trust had eroded between the two countries since Donald Trump became president, after the new United States leader fired missiles at Syria to punish Moscow’s ally for its suspected use of poison gas.
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The Russian diplomat claimed some progress was made on the crisis in the war-ravaged country and a working group would be set up to examine the poor state of US-Russia relations.
It appears that Russian Federation felt stung by the U.S. attack on Syria and no amount of USA convincing can convince Moscow that Damascus planned and executed the chemical attack. “But we’ll see what happens”.
Mr Johnson said: “This afternoon in NY, the global community sought to make clear that any use of chemical weapons by anyone anywhere is unacceptable and that those responsible will face consequences”. It called on the UN Security Council to launch a proper investigation into the incident.
Tillerson said, “The reign of the Assad family is coming to an end”. “They were there”, Trump said.
Tillerson, who met with Putin earlier Wednesday, deplored the “low level of trust” between the countries, whose relations have dropped to a post-Cold War low over Ukraine and Syria.
In some ways, Russia’s veto isn’t surprising.
Stopping just short of accusing Russian Federation of complicity with the sarin gas attack against civilians April 4, Trump said it’s “certainly possible” that Russian Federation had advance knowledge of the use of chemical weapons by its ally.
The U.S. military official said the Pentagon was examining specifically whether a Russian warplane had bombed a hospital in Khan Sheikhoun five hours after the initial chemical attack, with the aim of destroying evidence.
He said this was “concluded” during Wednesday’s visit of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Moscow.
Lavrov, however, said at Thursday’s news conference that the vetoed proposal was formulated “unilaterally” as it only asked the Syrian government to open access to all its military facilities.
Mr Putin had even honoured Mr Tillerson with a friendship award.
Russia’s alleged meddling in the U.S. presidential election also hovered over the first face-to-face encounter between Mr Putin and a Trump administration Cabinet member.
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“It is unclear whether Russian Federation failed to take this obligation seriously or Russian Federation has been incompetent, but this distinction doesn’t much matter to the dead”.
