No peace in Syria until regime change, US ambassador to UN says

US ambassador to United Nations, Nikki Haley, insists that peace can only be attained in war-torn Syria if president Bashar al-Assad is ousted

US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley
US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley

Defeating Islamic State, pushing Iranian influence out of Syria, and the ousting of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad are priorities for Washington, US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley said.

“There’s not any sort of option where a political solution is going to happen with Assad at the head of the regime,” Haley said, while recapping that defeating Isis was still the number one policy goal.

“If you look at his actions, if you look at the situation, it’s going to be hard to see a government that’s peaceful and stable with Assad.”

Haley’s remarks represented a departure from what she said before the United States hit a Syrian air base with 59 Tomahawk missiles on Thursday in retribution for what it said was a chemical weapons attack by Assad’s forces on Syrian civilians, a few days ago.

President Donald Trump ordered the missile strike after watching television images of infants suffering from chemical weapons injuries.

“You pick and choose your battles and when we’re looking at this, it’s about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out,” Haley told reporters on 30 March, just days before dozens of Syrian civilians deceased from chemical weapons injuries.

Haley’s latest comments jarred with remarks made by secretary of state Rex Tillerson, who said on Saturday that Washington’s first priority is to defeat Isis.

Once the threat from Isis has been reduced or eliminated, “I think we can turn our attention directly to stabilising the situation in Syria,” Tillerson said. The United States is hopeful it can help bring parties together to begin the process of hammering out a political solution, added Tillerson.

Syrian forces launched further airstrikes on Saturday that killed 18 people including five children in rebel-controlled Idlib province, as reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the civil defence rescue.