Any more air strikes on Syria by Western powers will bring "international chaos", Russia President Vladimir Putin says.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the Federal Assembly. Photo: AFP
He made his remarks in a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani after the United States, France and Britain launched missile strikes on Syria on Saturday over a suspected poison gas attack.
Washington described the strike targets as a centre near Damascus for the research, development, production and testing of chemical and biological weapons; a chemical weapons storage site near the city of Homs; and another site near Homs that stored chemical weapons equipment and housed a command post.
A Kremlin statement said Putin and Rouhani agreed that the Western strikes had damaged the chances of achieving a political resolution in the multi-sided, seven-year conflict that has killed at least half a million people.
"Vladimir Putin, in particular, stressed that if such actions committed in violation of the U.N. Charter continue, then it will inevitably lead to chaos in international relations," a Kremlin statement said.
Mr Putin's comments were published shortly after Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov struck a more conciliatory note by saying Moscow would make every effort to improve political relations with the West.
"Now the political situation is extremely tense, the atmosphere is extremely electrified, so I will not make any predictions," Mr Ryabkov told TASS news agency.
"We will work calmly, methodically and professionally, using all opportunities to remove the situation from its current extremely dangerous political peak."
Russian media reported Russian Foreign Ministry official Vladimir Ermakov as saying Washington would want to maintain a dialogue with Moscow about strategic stability after the raids.
In Damascus, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told a group of visiting Russian lawmakers the Western missile strikes were an act of aggression, Russian news agencies reported.
Syria released video of the wreckage of a bombed-out research lab, but also of Mr Assad arriving at work as usual, with the caption "morning of resilience" and there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Russian agencies quoted the lawmakers as saying that Assad was in a "good mood", had praised the Soviet-era air defence systems Syria used to repel the Western attacks and had accepted an invitation to visit Russia at an unspecified time.
Syria's deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad also met inspectors from global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW in Damascus for about three hours in the presence of Russian officers and a senior Syrian security official.
The inspectors were due to attempt to visit the site of the suspected gas attack in Douma on 7 April, which medical relief organisations say killed dozens of people.
Moscow condemned the Western states for refusing to wait for OPCW's findings before attacking.
In Washington, a senior administration official said that "while the available information is much greater on the chlorine use, we do have significant information that also points to sarin use" in the attack.
Sarin had previously appeared to be the threshold for intervention. Chlorine, in contrast, has been used more widely in Syria's conflict without past US reprisals and is far easier to find and weaponise, experts say.
The attacks struck at the heart of Syria's chemical weapons programme, Washington said, in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack a week ago. All three participants insisted the strikes were not aimed at toppling or intervening in the conflict.
The bombings, hailed by US President Donald Trump as a success but denounced by Damascus and its allies as an act of aggression, marked the biggest intervention by Western countries against Assad and ally Russia, whose foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called them "unacceptable and lawless".
"In the US administration there are specific people who it is possible to talk with," said Ermakov, head of the ministry's department for non-proliferation and arms control.
'No further plans for missile strikes' - Boris Johnson
In an indication that the West, too, would prefer to lower tensions, the US and Britain both reiterated that their military action on Saturday was not aimed at Mr Assad, Russia's ally, only at his use of chemical weapons.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Western powers had no plans for further missile strikes, though they would assess their options if Damascus used chemical weapons again.
The US, Britain, and France have all participated in the Syrian conflict for years, arming rebels, bombing Islamic State fighters and deploying troops to fight the militants. They have otherwise refrained from targeting Mr Assad's government however, apart from a volley of US missiles last year.
"This is not about regime change ... This is not about trying to turn the tide of the conflict in Syria," Mr Johnson told the BBC, adding that Russia was the only country able to pressure Mr Assad to negotiate an end to the conflict.
Asked about US-Russia relations, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said ties were "very strained" but that the United States still hoped for a better relationship.
However, she has also said that new sanctions would be announced on Monday against Russian companies with links to Mr Assad.
Ms Haley said the US would not pull its troops out of Syria until its goals were accomplished. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Ms Haley listed three aims for the US: ensuring that chemical weapons were not used in any way that posed a risk to US interests, that Islamic State be defeated and that there be a good vantage point to watch what Iran was doing.
- Reuters
