G-7 ministers aim to press Russia to stop backing Assad

Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano (right) and British Secretary of State Boris Johnson arrive for a bilateral meeting in Forte dei Marmi, near Lucca, yesterday

Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations were gathering in Italy yesterday for a meeting given urgency by the chemical attack in Syria and the U.S. military response, with participants aiming to pressure Russia to end its support for President Bashar Assad and help mount a new push for peace.

Last week’s nerve gas attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, which killed more than 80 people, stirred President Donald Trump to strike for the first time at Assad’s forces. U.S. warships fired 59 cruise missiles at the Syrian air base from which the U.S. believes the attack was launched.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said yesterday at the site of a World War II-era Nazi massacre in central Italy that the United States is rededicating itself to hold to account “any and all” who commit crimes against innocent people.

With the group of wealthy nations working to see if it can strike a common front on Syria, Tillerson accompanied Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano to Santa’Anna di Stazzema, where 560 civilians, including some 130 children, were killed in 1944.

Alfano said the site of past Nazi atrocities was a reminder that “peace is not a given. […] That is why we are here to work all together for peace and liberty.”

The meeting in the Tuscan walled city of Lucca brings together the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Britain, Japan and Canada — as well as the U.S. and current G-7 president Italy.

Ahead of the full meeting, Tillerson held bilateral talks with G-7 counterparts who included Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

Britain is keen for the ministers’ meeting to produce a tough statement and perhaps a threat of new sanctions if Moscow does not end its military support for Assad.

Over the weekend, Alfano said that Europe’s broad support for the U.S. military strikes had contributed to a “renewed harmony” between the United States and its partners as the G-7 foreign ministers prepared to meet for the first time since Donald Trump took office in January.

“We need to remember that not 10 years ago, but 100 or 120 days ago, the concern in Europe was that the United States and the EU were moving apart,” Alfano told Sky TG24 Sunday. “I welcome this renewed harmony.”

Officials are hoping the moment of unity can be leveraged to bring a new diplomatic push to end the six-year-old civil war in Syria.

After meeting Tillerson, Japan’s Kishida said “Japan supports the U.S. commitment in trying to take responsibility to prevent spread and use of chemical weapons and we confirmed Japan and the U.S. will continue to work together [in that effort].”

The chemical attack has sent a new chill through relations between the West and Moscow, which denies Syrian forces used chemical weapons.

Russia plans to put forward a proposal for an independent and impartial investigation of the attack, a spokesman for German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in Berlin.

The spokesman, Martin Schaefer, said Germany viewed it as “a good and important sign.”

Russia was kicked out of the club of industrialized nations, formerly the G-8, after its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and assistance for pro-
Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Britain’s Johnson, who had been due to visit Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow ahead of yesterday’s G-7 meeting, canceled the trip at the last minute, saying the chemical attack had “changed the situation fundamentally.”

He said that instead he would work with the United States and other G-7 nations “to build coordinated international support for a cease-fire on the ground and an intensified political process.” MDT/AP