No sign Putin seeks to cool friction with US

It is hard to see US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson coming way from the talks he is holding with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow Wednesday, April 12, with a neatly wrapped diplomatic package for cooling the boiling tensions between their governments. President Vladimir Putin seems more than ready to turn up the heat. Tuesday, he claimed he had information (no source cited) of a potential incident similar to the alleged chemical attack in Idlib province, possibly targeting the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. Speaking at a joint press conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella in Moscow, Putin said: “The goal is to discredit the government of Syrian President Assad. We have reports from multiple sources that false flags like this one – and I cannot call it otherwise – are being prepared in other parts of Syria, including the southern suburbs of Damascus. They plan to plant some chemical there and accuse the Syrian government of an attack.”
Putin did not say whom he was accusing, but his prediction of another incident sets the scene for more Syrian government chemical attacks very soon, while blaming America and US-backed Syrian rebels for “provocations.”
US Defense Secretary James Mattis, in contrast, appeared to be trying to pour oil on the churning waters, when he denied at his first news conference Tuesday that he had set any “red lines” and insisted that the Tomahawk missile attack on the Syrian Shayrat air base, which had destroyed some 20 percent of Assad’s warplanes, was separate from the main US goal which was to defeat ISIS in Syria. But he also stressed that the Trump administration would not remain passive in the face of more chemical attacks.

 

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