World leaders react to US military strike in Syria

DUBAI/MOSCOW: Saudi Arabia said on Friday it "fully supports" US strikes on military targets in Syria, saying it was a "courageous decision" by President Donald Trump in response to the use of chemical weapons against civilians.

"A responsible source at the foreign ministry expressed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's full support for the American military operations on military targets in Syria, which came as a response to the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons against innocent civilians," a statement carried by state news agency SPA said.



The statement praised what it described as "the courageous decision" by Trump and said it holds the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad responsible for the military strikes.

Russia's coalition with the United States on the Syria crisis is in doubt after Washington carried out air strikes on a Syrian airbase, news agencies quoted a senior Russian lawmaker as saying on Friday.

Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international affairs committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament, said the strikes were intended to "stamp an earlier verdict about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's responsibility for a chemical attack in Idlib with gunpowder," the Interfax news agency reported.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Friday he supported the US air strike on a Syrian airbase, calling it a "proportionate and calibrated response". In a televised statement, he also called on Russia to play its part in bringing peace to

Iran also said it strongly condemned U.S. missile strikes against a Syrian airbase, the Students News Agency ISNA quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying on Friday. "Iran strongly condemns any such unilateral strikes...such measures will strengthen terrorists in Syria...and it will complicate the situation in Syria and the region," ISNA quoted Bahram Qasemi as saying.

Britain fully supports the US military strike against a Syrian airfield from which a deadly chemical weapons attack was launched, a government spokesman said on Friday.

"The UK government fully supports the US action which we believe was an appropriate response to the barbaric chemical weapons attack launched by the Syrian regime and is intended to deter further attacks," the spokesman said. In a sharp escalation of the US military role in Syria, two US warships fired dozens of cruise missiles from the eastern Mediterranean Sea at the airbase controlled by President

Bashar al Assad's forces in response to the poison gas attack in a rebel-held area on Tuesday.



Turkish Deputy PM Kurtulmus hoped Us Operation in Syria contributes to achieving peace, the process must be accelerated.

Polish government spokesman on Syria attack, said the United States were the guarantor of world peace, said there are times when you need to react.

The United States informed France ahead of its missile strikes on Syrian military positions, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Friday.

"I was told by (US Secretary of State) Rex Tillerson during the night," Ayrault said.

"Use of chemical weapons is appalling and should be punished because it is a war crime," he said, adding that Russia and Iran needed to understand that supporting Assad made no sense and that France was not seeking a confrontation with those two countries.