Alfano Confirms G7 Reached No Agreement on Anti-Russian Sanctions Over Syria

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano confirmed Tuesday that the G7 foreign ministers did not agree on imposing sanctions against Russia over Syria.

The two-day meeting, which began on Monday, is a preparatory stage for the summit of the heads of state and government of the G7 which will be held in Sicily, Italy on May 26-27. The G7 includes the world's major advanced economies and currently consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

"At the moment, there is no agreement on the imposition of sanctions against Russia as an effective tool to achieve the goal [resolution of the crisis] in Syria," Alfano told reporters following the meeting of the G7 foreign ministers in Lucca.

The decision comes despite Moscow being criticized by the Western countries for supporting the Syrian government after a suspected chemical attack in Idlib province on April 4, that killed over 80 people, and for which the West put the blame on Damascus. On Saturday, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told CNN that US President Donald Trump and his administration were shown classified information proving that Syrian President Bashar Assad had been involved in the alleged attack. She said that Trump was considering the possibility of introducing sanctions against Russia and Iran for supporting the Syrian government. On April 6, the United States carried out missile strikes in Syria's Homs province in response to the alleged chemical attack.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has denied the government’s involvement in the Idlib incident, saying it would never use chemical weapons on either civilians or terrorists operating in the country. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that groundless accusations in the chemical weapons incident in Idlib were unacceptable before the investigation into the matter had been carried out, while Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday criticized the US missile attack as a violation of the international law.

Under a Russian-US deal after the east Ghouta sarin gas incident in 2013, Damascus joined the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and agreed to destroy its stockpile under Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) oversight. In January 2016, the OPCW announced that all chemical weapons in Syria had been destroyed.

"As far as the ‘post-Crimea’ issue of Ukraine is concerned, Italy is always against automatic extension of sanctions as we consider them an instrument that has another aim – reaching peace and stability in this country," Alfano added.

Since 2014, relations between Russia and the European Union and the United States, deteriorated amid the crisis in Ukraine. Brussels, Washington and their allies introduced several rounds of sanctions against Russia on the pretext of its alleged involvement in the Ukrainian conflict, which Moscow has repeatedly denied. In response to the restrictive measures, Russia has imposed a food embargo on some products originating in countries that have targeted it with sanctions.