US Seeks to Disrupt Syrian Peace by Accusing Damascus of Chemical Attack - Ex-UK Envoy

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th September, 2019) The United States seeks to undermine the recent political achievements in the Syrian peace process by timing the allegations about the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons in an attack in May to the announcement of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, former UK Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford told Sputnik.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a press conference in New York that the Syrian government used chlorine in an attack in May. The announcement came just three days after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres confirmed that the long-expected Syrian Constitutional Committee, which would be convened in the coming weeks, had been formed. Pompeo's claims have been refuted by Damascus, and the Russian Foreign Ministry has questioned the reliability of Washington's sources.

"We have to conclude that the timing was political, designed precisely to coincide with the announcements of better news on the political front and undermine their progress. Americans must be deeply unhappy to see success for Russian diplomacy and the prospects of these talks getting underway, which will make it politically more difficult for the Americans to announce military strikes against Syria or do other things, which complicate political track," Ford said.

The panel will be helpful in pressuring foreign nations into not interfering militarily and create an obstacle for potential US airstrikes in Syria, the former ambassador continued.

"The fact that the US is clearly upset by this success suggests that it will indeed be useful in helping to reduce the chances that the Western powers, particularly the US, will intervene militarily, while we have a prospect of progress on this political track. That does make it more difficult for the US to bomb Syria," Ford said.

The former ambassador noted, however, that he did not believe that the committee would be useful in terms of reconciling the differences between the warring parties since the participants had no control over any of the armed groups fighting in the northwestern province of Idlib.

The Syrian government has been repeatedly accused by the Western nations of using chemical weapons in attacks against the armed opposition despite Damascus' assurances that its chemical weapons stockpiles had been destroyed.

In April 2017, Washington blamed Damascus, without providing any evidence, for an alleged chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun in Idlib before launching 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian military airfield.