US, France and Britain brief NATO allies on Syria

The three allies briefed NATO ambassadors at a special session at the alliance headquarters and won support from the other 26 NATO members, who sought more diplomatic pressure to uphold an international ban on poison gas attacks like the one the West believes Syria conducted on April 7 in Douma.

The strikes “degraded the capabilities of Syria to conduct new attacks and at the same time send a clear message which deters further attacks”, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference after the meeting.

“We will never have a total guarantee against new attacks as long as we have regimes which are willing to use chemical weapons,” he said. “Chemical weapons cannot be used with impunity and cannot be normalised.”

NATO was not involved in the strikes.

In a separate statement, NATO envoys called on Syria, Russia and Iran to allow “rapid, sustained and unhindered humanitarian access” to areas targeted in Syria’s seven-year-old war.