UK 'could back air strikes against Assad if chemical weapons use proven'
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said on Tuesday that the UK could join the US military strikes against the Syrian government if there is proof that chemical weapons have been used against civilians in the Eastern Ghouta region.
Johnson said that the UK and other western nations should not overlook chemical attacks if there is an incontrovertible evidence of the Syrian government’s involvement in the strikes.
“If we know that it has happened, and we can demonstrate it, and if there is a proposal for action where the UK could be useful then I think we should seriously consider it,” Johnson told BBC radio.
“If the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) produces incontrovertible evidence of further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime or their supporters, I will certainly hope very much that the West does not stand idly by”, he added.
Nearly 400,000 civilians are trapped as the Syrian armies and allies repeatedly bomb the region, which holds the last rebel enclave near the capital. Over the past week Syrian forces backed by Russian warplanes have carried out one of the heaviest bombardments of the war killing hundreds of civilians.
Local doctors have said a suspected chlorine attack in eastern Ghouta injured 18 people and killed one child on Sunday evening in the latest attack.
Britain is part of the U.S. led coalition involved in attacks on Islamic State in Syria and Iraq but parliament does not support attacks on the Syrian government.
Johnson has said he supports attacks on Assad’s regime after almost 100 people died in a gas attack on the town Khan Sheikhoun, a rebel stronghold. Although the government has always denied using chemical weapons and says it targetes only armed rebels.
“What we need to ask ourselves as a country and what we in the the West need to ask ourselves, is can we allow the use of chemical weapons, the use of these illegal weapons to go unreproved, unchecked, unpunished,” Johnson said.