Turkey says US strikes 'cosmetic' if Assad stays in power
Turkey described the US missile attack on an air base as a "cosmetic intervention" unless it removes President Bashar Assad from power, while the Syrian leader's strong ally Iran called Saturday for the formation of an international fact-finding committee to investigate the chemical weapons attack in a northern Syrian town that killed scores of people and trigged the American attack.
The statements by Assad's opponents and backers came as warplanes struck the northern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun where the chemical attack killed 87 people earlier this week. The air raid killed a woman and wounded her son, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani called for the formation of an international fact-finding committee to investigate the chemical weapons attack. State television reported Rouhani's statement quoting him as insisting that the committee must be impartial and "must not be headed by Americans."
Rouhani said that "neutral countries should come and assess to make it clear where the chemical weapons came from."
