U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged President Bashar al-Assad to seek a political solution to Syria's war, saying this would help international efforts against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, al-Hayat newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The five permanent UN Security Council members met again on Thursday to discuss the appropriate response to last week's chemical attack. The meeting lasted for just under an hour. US, British, French, Chinese and Russian diplomats declined to comment to reporters after it.
U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that America was confident the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapon attack near Damascus last week. Obama said the use of chemical weapons affected the United States' national interests, raising the specter of whether military strikes on Bashar al-Assad's regime may be imminent
"The United States strongly condemns any and all use of chemical weapons... We are formally requesting that the United Nations urgently investigate this new allegation. The U.N. investigative team, which is currently in Syria, is prepared to do so," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement Wednesday in light of a new report claiming that chemical weapons were used by pro-Bashar al Assad forces against opposition forces in the current civil war in Syria. In the report, Assad's forces may have gassed as many as 1,300 people in what would be considered the worst chemical attack in decades. Assad's forces, for its part have vehemently denied committed the attack. Its chief ally Russia also suggested that rebel forces may have stage the assault to provoke international action.
