Ten members of the Group of 20 international economies have joined the United States in accusing the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad of carrying out a chemical weapons attack on civilians and have called for a strong international response.
The countries are Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
A joint statement by the ten countries and the United States stopped short of explicitly calling for military action against the Syrian government, as US President Barack Obama is advocating.
But the tough language aligned half of the G20 members with Obama, who worked the sidelines of the summit to build international support for a limited US military response. Obama is seeking congressional authority to launch a strike.
