Major Shaitan Singh
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2010
- Messages
- 3,550
- Reaction score
- 43
- Country
- Location
Kerry talks with Syrian diplomat, as U.S. military makes plans for speedy response
The U.S. government is stepping up its involvement in the Syrian crisis after allegations of chemical weapons use -- with its top military official making plans to respond quickly, and its top diplomat reaching out to Syria's foreign minister and others in the wake of the report.
On Saturday, a senior State Department official said that Secretary of State John Kerry had talked Thursday -- the day after the attack -- with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem.
The purpose of the call was to make clear that if the Syrian government had nothing to hide, it should have allowed immediate access to the site -- rather than continuing to attack the area to block access and destroy evidence, the official said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military was busy in its own right.
If claims that Syria used chemical weapons this week are true, a speedy response will be needed to prevent another such attack, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday.
A senior Defense Department official has told CNN that military planners have updated Syrian target lists. And it was disclosed that a fourth U.S. ship armed with cruise missiles has arrived in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
A United Nations team is in Syria attempting to investigate a claim by the nation's rebels that a chemical weapons attack by President Bashar al-Assad's forces outside Damascus killed more than 1,300 people.
Hagel addressed the issue aboard a military plane headed to Malaysia.
"We will determine at some point here very shortly what did happen," he said, according to an account posted on the Defense Department's website.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/24/us/syria-military-options/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
The U.S. government is stepping up its involvement in the Syrian crisis after allegations of chemical weapons use -- with its top military official making plans to respond quickly, and its top diplomat reaching out to Syria's foreign minister and others in the wake of the report.
On Saturday, a senior State Department official said that Secretary of State John Kerry had talked Thursday -- the day after the attack -- with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem.
The purpose of the call was to make clear that if the Syrian government had nothing to hide, it should have allowed immediate access to the site -- rather than continuing to attack the area to block access and destroy evidence, the official said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military was busy in its own right.
If claims that Syria used chemical weapons this week are true, a speedy response will be needed to prevent another such attack, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday.
A senior Defense Department official has told CNN that military planners have updated Syrian target lists. And it was disclosed that a fourth U.S. ship armed with cruise missiles has arrived in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
A United Nations team is in Syria attempting to investigate a claim by the nation's rebels that a chemical weapons attack by President Bashar al-Assad's forces outside Damascus killed more than 1,300 people.
Hagel addressed the issue aboard a military plane headed to Malaysia.
"We will determine at some point here very shortly what did happen," he said, according to an account posted on the Defense Department's website.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/24/us/syria-military-options/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
