[van id=”politics/2018/04/14/mobile-tomahawk-missile-launch-uss-monterey-syria-strike-raw.cnn”]
WASHINGTON (AP) — French Defense Minister Florence Parly says that the joint military strikes by the U.S., Britain and France on Syrian targets was a success and that the mission’s goals have been achieved.
Parly spoke Saturday at a news conference following a defense council meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and other officials. She says, “Syria’s ability to design, produce and stockpile chemical weapons has been greatly diminished.”
Parly says, “The mission is a success. Its military objectives are achieved.”
The joint military strikes were intended as a punishment for Syrian President Bashar Assad for a suspected chemical attack against civilians in the town of Douma outside Damascus last week. Opposition leaders and rescuers say more than 40 people, including many women and children, died in the suspected chemical attack.
Turkey’s president says the airstrikes on Syrian targets in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack were “correct” and showed the Syrian regime that such actions would not go “unanswered.”
Speaking Saturday in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his support of the joint American, British and French military operation but said more must be done to hold the Syrian regime accountable for the hundreds of thousands killed using conventional weapons.
He says, “The people martyred by chemicals is a certain amount, but the people martyred by conventional weapons is much, much more.”
Erdogan called the days leading up to the airstrikes a “showdown” led by America and Russia. He says he pushed for a peaceful end to the tension in a conversation with British Prime Minister Theresa May earlier Saturday.
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