UN:' considerable ' evidence of use of chemical weapons. The U.S. increasingly alone
Damascus (
AsiaNews / Agencies) - The UN inspectors have collected "considerable"
evidence of a possible chemical weapons attack in Damascus. Tomorrow
they will leave the country and report the first results to Secretary-General
Ban Ki -moon. Meanwhile,
the British parliament has rejected any possibility of a military intervention on
the Syrian government , while the United States ponders the possibility of
intervening on their own to punish this "crime against humanity " .
Farhan
Haq , a spokesman for the United Nations , said last night that evidence
collected by inspectors in Damascus will be sent to laboratories in Europe to
be analyzed with care. The results
should be ready in a week. But
the UN team will give an initial reporto the Secretary-General as soon as
tomorrow, as soon as they arrive from Syria.
In
recent days, Ban has asked the major powers pushing for military strikes
against Syria to at least wait for evidence of the use of chemical weapons. The
United States, Britain, France, Turkey are convinced that chemical weapons were
used in Ghouta on the orders of the Assad regime .
Yesterday
some members of the U.S. Congress presented independent evidence gathered by Washington
intelligence, which proves "beyond all doubt " that Damascus "has
used chemical weapons " and that "the Assad government has used them
in intentionally . "
A
statement released yesterday by the White House says that President Obama will
make a decision "in the best interest of the United States." So
far, Barack Obama said he was certain that Assad has used chemical weapons ,
but has not yet said yes to a military intervention .
Yesterday
the possibility of an international forces punitive attack on Syria suffered a major
defeat : the English Parliament voted in a majority against any possible
involvement , forcing Prime Minister David Cameron to back down .
Among the
interventionists remains France. Yesterday,
President François Hollande met with the head of the Syrian opposition, Ahmad
Jarba , reiterating that the use of chemical weapons can not remain unanswered
and promising more military aid to the rebels.
In
general, European public opinion is divided, but the majority (between 60 and
52%) is against a military attack on Syria . The
memory of what happened in Iraq in 2003 weighs heavily on many peoples minds, when
the war was launched on the basis of revelations from U.S. intelligence on
Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction , which were never
found.
In
the meantime, the presence of U.S., French and Russian military ships and
British fighter jets in the Mediterranean Sea is growing.
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