Putin and Rouhani, in phone call, condemn US aggression in Syria

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Fallon wrote that the Russian president was responsible "by proxy" for the chemical attack, as the "principal backer" of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's regime.

Instead, Tillerson said that defeating the Islamic State remained the first priority.

By jettisoning regime change in Syria and working to accommodate Russian concerns, Trump positioned himself in his initial months in office as a hard-nosed practitioner of realpolitik who would train all his guns on the jihadi menace.

"It's very hard to understand how a political solution could result from the continuation of the Assad regime", McMaster said on "Fox News Sunday".

However, Prime Minister Theresa May's official spokesman refused to be drawn on whether the United Kingdom would support further USA military action, saying it was a "hypothetical question". "Russia should ask themselves, 'What are we doing here?' Why are we supporting this murderous regime that is committing mass murder of its own population and using the most heinous weapons available?'" He called the Assad government a main force against terrorism and said it deserved the presumption of innocence in the chemical weapons attack.

"I don't think anything is off the table", Haley said.

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon on Sunday accused Russian Federation of being "responsible" by proxy for the death of 87 civilians, including many children, killed last week in a suspected chemical weapons attack. The North has long claimed that the U.S.is preparing some kind of assault against it and justifies its nuclear weapons as defensive in nature. He was speaking days after US missile strikes on a Syrian airbase in retaliation for what the United States said was a chemical weapons attack by Assad's forces.

Thus, it remains to be seen if Trump's recent decision to strike the Syrian airbase will sour the ties between the Trump and Putin or is it just an attempt by the US to put an end to all the US-Russia collaboration theories and mislead the global community. "The president will make whatever decision he thinks is in the best interests of the American people".

Criticized for his low-profile diplomacy, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is emerging from the shadows with a leading public role in shaping and explaining the Trump administration's missile strikes in Syria.

Russian Federation has backed Syria for much of the six-year conflict, and has used its veto power in the UN Security Council on several occasions to prevent action being taken against the Damascus government.

USA naval ships head toward Korean Peninsula
North Korea since March has twice carried out ballistic missile tests in defiance of United Nations resolutions. Among the topics of discussion was the vexing problem of North Korea.

Notably, Trump's decision to launch an attack on the Assad regime also incited a wave of criticism and skepticism from his supporters.

"Congress needs to work with the president to try and deal with this long-term strategy, lack of strategy, really, in Syria", he said. "We haven't had one for six years during the Obama administration, and 400,000 civilians have died and millions of people have been displaced internally and externally in Europe and elsewhere".

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, agreed.

"I think the real failure here has been Russia's failure to live up to its commitments under the chemical weapons agreements that were entered into in 2013", he said on ABC's This Week. Lawmakers are divided over America's use of military force. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whose close ties to Russian Federation raised questions during his confirmation hearings, slammed Moscow for either being "complicit" in the chemical weapons attack or "incompetent".

The Russian and American foreign ministers are due to meet in Moscow this week. Syrian rebel groups said on Friday the U.S. "responsibility" did not end with the missile attack.

The president ordered a big shift in USA policy, he said, partly because he saw heart-rending pictures of the victims on television. The Russians, angry about the attack on the air base, have threatened to cut off a communication line that the U.S. and Russian militaries have used to notify each other about air operations in Syria. On Friday, senior US military officials were looking more closely at possible Russian involvement in the poison attack.

Tillerson said defeating the Islamic State group remains the top focus.

"If we can achieve ceasefires in zones of stabilization in Syria, then I believe - we hope we will have the conditions to begin a useful political process", Tillerson said.

Some analysts believe the March 30 comments by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley emboldened Assad ahead of the Khan Sheikhoun attack. Haley has made an about face on her previous remarks, saying on Saturday that Assad's removal is a priority.

The Syrian opposition has reported that Assad's forces have begun flying again from an air base struck last week by USA missiles.

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