US, Russia exchange words over Syria

The United States and Russia have exchanged words over the six-year-old Syrian war, with relations between the two states suffering a downturn before the foreign ministers of the two world powers meet tomorrow. 

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a missile strike on a Syrian military base last week in retaliation for what Washington and its allies say was a poison gas attack in which scores of civilians were killed.

Moscow says there is no proof that the Syrian military carried out the attack. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on April 10 that the missile strike on Syria carried out by the United States on April 7 on the Shayrat Air Base in the north of Syria was an aggressive act against a sovereign state and an action which violated international law.

The statement was released after a phone call between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Reuters reported.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, on the other hand, used a visit on April 10 to a World War II memorial to declare that the United States would stand up to aggressors who harm civilians, as the Trump administration sought to rally world leaders behind a strategy to resolve the protracted civil war in Syria.

"We rededicate ourselves to holding to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world," Tillerson said. "This place will serve as an inspiration to us all."

Apart from using his meetings with foreign ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized economies to try to persuade leading countries to support the U.S. plan, the top U.S. diplomat will take part in a meeting of "likeminded" nations on Syria, including several Arab nations who...