Assad family reign coming to an end, says Tillerson in Moscow

The US sees no place for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or his family in the future governance of the country, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Moscow on Wednesday, after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The reign of the Assad family is coming to an end," he said. "They brought this on themselves."

He was speaking just before Russia vetoed a UN draft resolution demanding the Syrian government cooperate with an investigation into last week's suspected chemical attack that the West blames on Syrian government forces.

Tillerson is in Moscow after US missile strikes in Syria last week in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack.

Putin, speaking before meeting with Tillerson, said that relations with the US have "deteriorated" in the wake of last week's US strike.

The Kremlin had earlier declined to confirm whether Putin and Tillerson would be meeting.

Asked about relations since Donald Trump became president, Putin said: "One could say that the level of trust on a working level, especially on the military level, has not improved, but rather has deteriorated."

Trump also voiced caution on Wednesday on his relationship with Putin, saying he would wait and see about future ties with Moscow.

But Trump, at a White House news conference, said Tillerson's meetings in Moscow went better than expected.

How to deal with Assad

Tillerson’s visit comes as the United States and her allies attempt to forge a united front that will put pressure on Moscow to disown its ally, President Bashar al-Assad.

Last Friday the US military attacked an air base following a chemical attack in Khan Sheikhun on 4 April, marking a dramatic shift in the policy of the new US administration toward Syria.

As Syrian government attacks on rebel areas intensified in the wake of the US strike, the White House has signalled that further action against Syrian forces may be forthcoming.

Trump had been accused by US critics of being too close to the Russian leader during the US presidential election campaign and since he took power in January.

A British-American attempt to impose sanctions on Syria and Russia failed at the G7 on Tuesday when Germany and Italy vetoed it in favour of waiting for the results of a UN-backed investigation.

In a change of tack, the US, Britain and France have drawn up a resolution to pressure the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday to increase its support for an international investigation into the toxic attack. Moscow vetoed the measure.

Barrel bombs dropped near Hama

Meanwhile in Syria, government forces conducted 120 air strikes and dropped four barrel bombs by helicopter near Hama in the past 24 hours, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory said government forces – which have also used rocket and artillery shells – are preparing for an attack on towns in the region.

Fierce fighting between government and rebel forces has also been taking place in the countryside around Homs and in Eastern Ghouta, a region that suffered a chemical weapon attack in 2013.

One of the sticking points in Tillerson’s talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov is America’s insistence that the Syrian government was responsible for the chemical attack.

Lavrov had greeted Tillerson with unusually icy remarks, denouncing the missile strike on Syria as illegal and accusing Washington of behaving unpredictably.

One of Lavrov's deputies was even more undiplomatic.

"In general, primitiveness and loutishness are very characteristic of the current rhetoric coming out of Washington," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia's state-owned RIA news agency.

The US published a four-page dossier on Tuesday which sought to rebut what it says are Moscow’s "false narratives" that "have been timed to distract the international community from Syria’s ongoing use of chemical weapons".

"Additionally, our information indicates personnel historically associated with Syria's chemical weapons programme were at Shayrat airfield in late March making preparations for an upcoming attack in northern Syria, and they were present at the airfield on the day of the attack," the report reads.

“We are certain that the opposition could not have fabricated all of the videos and other reporting of chemical attacks. Doing so would have required a highly organised campaign to deceive multiple media outlets and human rights organisation while evading detection,” the report adds.

For its part, the Syrian government says air strikes had hit rebel chemical weapons stocks, releasing poisonous gas, or that the incident was a set-up designed to discredit Damascus. Russia accuses the United States of an illegal aggression on a false pretext.

On Tuesday, Putin took this further and claimed that Washington was planning more strikes and that rebels were planning to stage chemical weapons attacks to provoke them.

“We have information that a similar provocation is being prepared ... in other parts of Syria including in the southern Damascus suburbs where they are planning to again plant some substance and accuse the Syrian authorities of using" chemical weapons, he said.

US shifts rhetoric on Russia

Trump’s appointment of Tillerson -  a former chairman of oil company Exxon Mobil corp, which has links in Russia - was once seen as a sign that relations between Moscow and Washington were set to thaw under the new presidency.

Yet statements made by US officials on Tuesday appear to be a turning point for a US administration that in the past alarmed allies by voicing scepticism about the value of US support for traditional allies, while calling for closer ties with Moscow.

• Read: Tillerson to tell Russia: We hope for a Syria without Assad

Tillerson said at the G7 summit in Italy: "It is clear to us the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end. We hope that the Russian government concludes that they have aligned themselves with an unreliable partner in Bashar al-Assad."

'It is clear to us the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end'

Rex Tillerson, US Secretary of State

Washington's UN envoy Nikki Haley on Tuesday said she thought Russia knew about the chemical attack in advance.

"They didn’t look shocked. They didn’t look surprised. They were so quick to defend. And then the evidence comes out, and we see exactly what it is and we know exactly what the environment was. Then you realise," she said on CNN.