British PM says will speak with Donald Trump regarding Syria chemical attack

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) –  The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on Tuesday announced that she would speak with United States President Donald Trump later in the day regarding the alleged chemical weapons attack on Syria’s Eastern Ghouta.

“I’ll be continuing to talk with our allies and partners as I have done, speaking to President [Emmanuel] Macron this morning, and I’ll be speaking to President Trump later today,” British Prime Minister Theresa May told members of the media in Cambridgeshire, eastern England.

Although she did not explicitly say whether the UK would join the US if it decided to engage in further military action against Syria, May stressed that “those responsible should be held to account.”

“This attack that took place in Douma is a barbaric attack,” she added. “Obviously we are working urgently with our allies and partners to assess what has happened on the ground.”

The British Prime Minister also said she would chair a meeting of Britain’s National Security Council later on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

A spokesperson for French President Macron, earlier in the day, said Paris would respond to the Syria chemical attack “if the red line has been crossed.”

During an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday, the French ambassador to the UN said many of the victims affected by the gas attack showed symptoms of “a powerful neurotoxic agent, combined with chlorine to enhance its lethal effect.”

Trump charged that Syria’s close allies, Russia and Iran, were also responsible, while Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis noted that Russia had earlier assumed the role as “guarantor” of the removal of all of Syria’s chemical weapons.

The US President affirmed on Monday that he would be making “some major decisions over the next 24 to 48 hours.” One possibility is a “multinational military response,” as Reuters reported late in the day.

Meanwhile, Russia forcefully denied that Syria had used any chemical weapons at all. Moscow’s UN ambassador told the Security Council that Russian experts had visited the site of the alleged assault and found no evidence of a chemical attack.