G7 Meeting: Syria Tops Agenda, Stop Military Escalation

The agenda of this year's G7 foreign ministers' meeting, to be held in the Italian city of Lucca, will include the chemical attack in Syria and Russian support for the Assad regime, Patria reports.

The meeting, which begins on Monday afternoon, will be attended by the foreign ministers of the USA, Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Earlier, it was expected that the ministers would primarily consider issues concerning Libya, Iran, and Ukraine, but the situation has since changed, and the attack on Khan Sheikhun, which killed at least 87 people, and the US military response, will be at the very top of the agenda.

US Secretary of State Tillerson arrived in Tuscany on Sunday, and on Monday briefly met with Japanese Minister Fumio Kishida before heading to the site of a Nazi massacre in World War II in Sant'Anna di Stazzema, where a memorial for the victims was held. This was followed by bilateral talks before the G7 meeting began in the afternoon.

Italy, as the host of the summit, will arrange a meeting on Tuesday between G7 members and their counterparts from the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Qatar. Italian media report that the goal of this meeting is to "stop the dangerous military escalation".