U.S. Allies Weigh Response to Chemical Weapons Charge

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/world/middleeast/syria.html

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PARIS — The Syrian government on Friday denounced the Obama administration’s assertion that Syrian forces had used chemical weapons as “full of lies,” even as the American’s finding produced strong reactions around the world.

The administration said Thursday that given American intelligence assessments that Syria had used chemical weapons on multiple occasions, though on a small scale, it would step up support for the rebel forces opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, including providing them with some limited weapons. The shift reverberated in world capitals on Friday, though it remained unclear just how far the American support would go and how soon new arms would start flowing into the country.

Most European countries said they agreed with Washington’s assessment, but they were less eager to join the United States in supplying weapons to the rebels.

Germany called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council to reach a joint position and said that Berlin would not be supplying any weapons to any side in the civil war. Britain said that it agreed with the United States’ assessment on the use of chemical weapons and wanted to urgently discuss how to respond with the American and French leaders, including at a G-8 summit meeting next week in Northern Ireland, which the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, is also scheduled to attend.

France and Britain had already said they believed that the Assad government had used chemical weapons in small amounts, and both acted in late May to lift a European Union embargo against arms supplies to the Syrians. But they have also said that they would not supply arms to the rebels until a negotiating process got under way. Peace talks backed by the United States and Russia have been deferred.

Aides to Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said he would discuss the issue with Mr. Obama in a telephone conversation on Friday.

“We have made no decision to arm the opposition, but it was right to lift the arms embargo,” Mr. Cameron said in a news conference.

The French president, François Hollande, avoided specifics, saying at a news conference: “We must exert pressure on the regime of Bashar Assad. We must get him to understand that there is no other solution than a political solution.”

“Assad must go,” he added.

The Assad government, emboldened by its conquest of the contested city of Qusayr, near the border with Lebanon, has stepped up its offensive with an assault on Aleppo. On Friday, it fiercely denied that it has used chemical weapons.

“The White House has issued a statement full of lies about the use of chemical weapons in Syria based on fabricated information,” the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The United States is using cheap tactics to justify President Barack Obama’s decision to arm the Syrian opposition.”

The rebels are already getting arms from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. But they have said that they need sophisticated weaponry, like antitank and antiaircraft missiles, much more than they need small arms. But the West has been reluctant to supply more advanced weapons, or to authorize their supply, because of the strong influence of more radical Islamist fighters in the opposition and the difficulty of ensuring that weapons go only to more moderate rebels.

The rebels want to stop the Syrian Air Force, which has no opposition as it bombs and strafes rebel positions. American officials are said to be considering imposing a no-fly zone over some rebel-held territory, especially as the Syrian Army is pressing its advantage, aided by Hezbollah, and moving on to Aleppo.

Russia has been supplying the Syrian government with weapons and has a longstanding contract to sell an advanced air-defense system it has chosen not to ship for now.

On Friday, the Russians reminded the United States of American intelligence failings that preceded the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Yury Ushakov, a Putin adviser, said that the evidence of chemical weapons use recently presented to Moscow by Washington “does not look convincing to us.” He then warned Washington not to repeat its mistakes in Iraq.

Alexei Pushkov, a former journalist who is chairman of the Russian Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said on Twitter that “information about Assad’s use of chemical weapons has been fabricated in the same place as the lies about Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.” He said that it “makes no sense” for Mr. Assad to use sarin gas “in small amounts.”

Mr. Ushakov said that chances for peace talks on Syria would be hurt by large-scale assistance to the rebels. But the Americans believe that Mr. Assad will come to the table in Geneva for serious talks only if the Syrian opposition is strengthened. That was also the rationale Britain and France used in letting the European Union’s arms embargo lapse.

The American chemical weapons assessment was embraced by countries that have pushed for a stronger course of action to end the violence, including a no-fly zone. But they also invoked Iraq, notably the 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja, which killed an estimated 5,000 people.

“These are very serious assessments,” Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, told reporters. “Using chemical weapons is like a small nuclear weapon. The dimension of this is very dangerous. We know what has been experienced in Halabja. I am sure all diplomats and analysts are evaluating these claims. If this finding has been proved precisely, then it is certain that all things will enter another phase.”

Turkey, which shares a border with Syria, has strongly backed the opposition.

The 1925 Geneva Protocol and several later international agreements ban the use of chemical weapons.

While many details about where and when the American government believes Syrian forces used chemical weapons, Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, said intelligence officials believe 100 to 150 people were killed by a nerve agent.

“The president has said that the use of chemical weapons would change his calculus, and it has,” he said.

NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told reporters in Brussels that Syria should immediately grant access to United Nations investigators and allow them to look into all reports of chemical weapons use.

“This is indeed a matter of great concern,” he said. “The international community has made clear that any use of chemical weapons is completely unacceptable and a clear breach of international law.”

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations said that any action that escalated the armed conflict would set back any chance for peace, and he expressed concern about the conflict having a rippling effect across the region. In particular, he noted the danger posed by the recent decision of Hezbollah, the Shiite militia based in Lebanon that is backed by Iran, to enter the fray on the side of the Assad government.

“The open engagement of Hezbollah into this Syria crisis is very, very worrisome,” he said at the united Nations headquarters in New York.

Since Hezbollah made common cause with the Assad forces, the government has scored several key victories, including the capture of Qusayr.

The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, reaffirmed his support of the Assad government on Friday. “We took a decision, although late, to intervene on the ground,” he said during a ceremony commemorating wounded members of the resistance group. “We entered in order to confront the project that was under way in Syria.”

“This was not a spur-of-the moment decision,” he said.

Some American lawmakers favor far greater intervention, and have called on the Obama administration to go even further.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, called Thursday for the establishment of a no-fly zone, but it appeared unlikely that such action would be approved anytime soon.

A spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, Philippe Lalliot, said that France would insist on a Chapter 7 Security Council resolution authorizing the use of military force before supporting any no-fly zone. The intervention in Libya that brought down Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was sanctioned by such a resolution, but Russia, which abstained at the time, said that it felt the resolution was deliberately misused by the West, and it has promised to veto any similar resolution concerning Syria.

China, which is also a permanent member of the Security Council, said only that it looked forward to a more thorough investigation into the claims that chemical weapons were used.

“China’s position on the use of chemical weapons is consistent and clear,” Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a news briefing. “No matter who uses chemical weapons, we will firmly oppose the action.”

<NYT_AUTHOR_ID> <p>Steven Erlanger reported from Paris, and Marc Santora from New York. John F. Burns contributed reporting from London.