AlQa'dah 1, 1434, Sep 7, 2013, SPA -- The European Union on Saturday laid the blame for an August chemical attack in Syria on the government of President Bashar al-Assad, but stopped short of explicitly supporting a military response by the West, Reuters reported. The carefully worded message from foreign ministers of 28 EU governments meeting in Vilnius allowed France to claim victory in its push to get the EU to agree that Assad was responsible for the attack in which more than 1,400 may have been killed. But it also made clear that the bloc wanted the United Nations to have a role in agreeing an international response, reflecting the position of countries including Germany which oppose taking action before a team of U.N. inspectors can present its findings on the incident. After the EU agreement, Germany said it would sign a statement supported by 11 nations at the Group of Twenty summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday that backed a "strong" response to the alleged use of sarin gas against civilians. Germany said it did not sign on Friday because it wanted to see an EU consensus on the issue first. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the ministers meeting in the Lithuanian capital had agreed that information from a wide variety of sources "seems to indicate strong evidence" of the Syrian government's responsibility. -- SPA 20:14 LOCAL TIME 17:14 GMT تغريد
