EU pushes for UN-led peace moves in Syria after strikes

The European Union is looking to push for a solution in Syria through the UN after the punitive strikes led by the US, UK and France against Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime.

The Western strikes on Saturday were launched in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack that US President Donald Trump branded the "crimes of a monster".

Federica Mogherini, the EU's foreign policy chief said the bloc wants to use a major meeting on Syria next week to give impetus to UN peace moves following the airstrikes, which marked the biggest foreign military action so far against the Syrian regime.

"There is the need to give a push to the UN-led process," Mogherini said on Monday.

Speaking before chairing talks among EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, she said: "People are suffering, people are dying, and I think the whole international community has to take responsibility for this."

The April 24-25 Syria donor conference in Brussels is expected to be attended by more than 70 delegations.

Stef Blok, the Dutch Foreign Minister said: "We should keep on pushing for a solution through the UN Security Council. It's the only way forward."

UK Prime Minister Theresa May is set to meet with lawmakers today to explain her decision to launch airstrikes against the Assad regime without a vote in Parliament.

The suspected chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta saw at least 49 people die according to medical groups and rescuers, with other estimates reaching over a hundred.

Graphic images and videos emerged on social media following Douma's alleged gas attack, showing children struggling to breathe and entire families who had succumbed to the attack on the floors of underground shelters.

These are not the actions of a man. They are crimes of a monster instead

In a White House address, Trump announced he had ordered the strikes – taken in defiance of Russia's threat to respond – saying, "that massacre was a significant escalation in a pattern of chemical weapons use by that very terrible regime".

"The evil and the despicable attack left mother and fathers, infants and children thrashing in pain and gasping for air. These are not the actions of a man. They are crimes of a monster instead."

Trump's furious reaction was quickly matched by France's President Emmanuel Macron who said in a statement: "We cannot tolerate the normalisation of the use of chemical weapons."

Both Syria and Russia have denied using chemical weapons and have blamed the rebels on using it on themselves to whip up international condemnation.

Eastern Ghouta had been under a ruthless seven-week assault that devastated the area and killed more than 1,700 civilians, allowing Assad's forces to gain control of more than 90 percent of the former rebel stronghold.

Around 500,000 people have died and millions made homeless in seven years of fighting in Syria, which was sparked when regime forces brutally put down peaceful protests in 2011.