Syria chemical attack evidence mounting, John Baird says

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said evidence of a possible chemical weapons attack in Syria this week is mounting, but he stopped short of confirming a chemical attack actually took place.

"The fact that Syria continues to bombard this specific geographic area ... is telling," Baird said at a press conference Friday afternoon. "The fact that Syria will not let the UN inspectors who are on the ground in the country today visit this area is a very telling action."

Baird said he has met with his British counterpart, William Hague, and both of them are "troubled" by the United Nations Security Council’s inability to take decisive action.

When asked if Canada will take any military action, Baird said Canada and its allies need more information before coming to a conclusion.

"The only end of the suffering of the Syrian people will be a political solution," he said.

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Wednesday's attack came as a UN team was on the ground in Syria investigating earlier claims of chemical weapons attacks.

More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria during more than two years of clashes between forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and opposition fighters seeking to overthrow his regime.

U.S. President Barack Obama says the alleged possible chemical weapons attack is a "big event of grave concern" that has hastened the timeframe for determining a U.S. response.  

However, Obama said the notion that the U.S. alone can end Syria's bloody civil war is "overstated" and made clear he would seek international support before taking large-scale action.  

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"If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a UN mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it, do we have the coalition to make it work," Obama said during an interview with CNN. "Those are considerations that we have to take into account." 

Obama's comments on Syria were his first since Wednesday's alleged chemical weapons attack on the eastern suburbs of Damascus that killed at least 100 people. While he appeared to signal some greater urgency in responding, his comments were largely in line with his previous statements throughout the two-year conflict.  

The president said the U.S. is still seeking conclusive evidence that chemical weapons were used this week.

Such actions, he said, would be troubling and would be detrimental to "some core national interests that the United States has, both in terms of us making sure that weapons of mass destruction are not proliferating, as well as needing to protect our allies, our bases in the region." 

Russia calls for Syria's co-operation

The Russian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, is calling for an independent probe by UN experts into the incident.

The statement released on Friday said that Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had discussed the situation by telephone on Thursday, and concluded that they had a "mutual interest" in calling for the UN investigation.

The statement said Russia had called for Assad's embattled government to co-operate with an investigation, but questions remained about the willingness of the opposition, "which must secure safe access of the mission to the location of the incident."

Russia has been one of Assad's key allies in the international arena.

U.S. shouldn't be 'jumping' into immediate action

Obama has warned that the use of the deadly gases would cross a "red line," but the U.S. response to the confirmed attacks earlier this year has been minimal.  

That's opened Obama up to fierce criticism, both in the U.S. and abroad. Among those leading the criticism is Arizona's Republican Senator John McCain, who says America's credibility has been damaged because Obama has not taken more forceful action to stop the violence.  

The president pushed back at those assertions in the interview aired Friday, saying that while the U.S. remains "the one indispensable nation," that does not mean the country should get involved everywhere immediately.  

"Sometimes what we've seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff, that does not turn out well," he said. "We have to think through strategically what's going to be in our long-term national interests, even as we work co-operatively internationally to do everything we can to put pressure on those who would kill innocent civilians." 

After the earlier chemical weapons attacks, Obama did approve the shipments of small weapons and ammunition to the Syrian rebels, but there is little sign that the equipment has arrived.