New York (April 15, 2018): Washington will impose new sanctions on Russia in the wake of Syria chemical attack, said US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
“Russian sanctions will be coming down,” Haley said and added that the new sanctions are expected to be announced by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Monday.
“Secretary Mnuchin will be announcing those on Monday if he hasn’t already, and they will be going directly to any sort of companies that were dealing with equipment related to [Syrian President Bashar] Assad and chemical weapons use,“ Haley said.
The sanctions are designed to hit Moscow for its support for the Assad’s government. She said that the fact that Assad was making the use of chemical weapons “more normal and that Russia was covering this up, all that has got to stop.”
The UN envoy also said that the administration of President Donald Trump’s response takes into account other attacks using chemical weapons, and military action was only taken because diplomatics efforts have been stymied.
“If you look at what Russia is doing, they continue to be involved with all the wrong actors, whether their involvement in Ukraine, whether you look at how they are supporting Venezuela, whether you look in Syria and their way of propping up Assad and working with Iran, that continues to be a problem,” Haley said.
She called the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skiripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury – which the UK has blamed on Russia – as “another issue.”
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