PRESS RELEASE
British To Push More Sanctions
April 10, 2017 (EIRNS)—British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson will be carrying the ball for the British flight-forward against Russia at the G7 foreign ministers’ two-day meeting in Lucca, Italy. Johnson will call for tightening sanctions against Russia following the latest developments in Syria, according to The Times.
"Britain is pushing Western nations to impose new sanctions on Russia if it fails to cut ties with President Assad as the conflict over Syria escalates. A paper on sanctions has been prepared for a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Lucca, Italy, which starts today,"
the Times writes, continuing that the British
"foreign secretary believes that the chemical attack, and the swift use of force by President Trump, who fired 59 cruise missiles into a Syrian airbase, presents a new opportunity to alleviate the country’s suffering after six years of civil war."
The paper also said that
"Johnson wants the G7 to issue a joint declaration that Russia should end its support for the Assad regime, and remove its forces from Syria to enable aid convoys to return. ... If President Putin refuses, new sanctions on Russia—on top of those in place because of the incursion in Ukraine—will be introduced, aimed at ‘making life very difficult’ for government figures."
No doubt Johnson thinks U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will be at his side. Johnson has cancelled his trip to Moscow on the pretext of "Russia’s continued defense of the Assad regime" and has said Tillerson, who will be in Moscow on April 12, will be carrying Johnson’s message.
This drew a caustic remark from Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who told TASS on April 8:
"This cancellation of the visit followed its recent postponing. The U.K. side named various reasons. The impression is that our Western counterparts live in some special reality, where at first they are trying to make collective plans unilaterally, and then to have them changed also unilaterally, inventing absurd reasons."
