Russia has failed to hold up its end of a 2013 deal to remove Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, making Moscow either "complicit" or "simply incompetent" in its handling of the agreement, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday night.
Tillerson made his remarks after the U.S. launched a strike from the Mediterranean targeting an airfield near Homs, Syria. The U.S. says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime was behind Tuesday's chemical attack in Idlib that killed dozens of people, a claim the regime rejects. Tillerson told reporters there is a "high degree of confidence" sarin gas was used in the assault, and he called the U.S. strike a "proportionate" response. He also contradicted the Pentagon, which said Russia had been notified in advance of the strike via a deconfliction line; Tillerson said "there were no discussions or prior contacts" between the U.S. and Moscow.
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