DHAKA: US state secretary John Kerry vowed Monday that the United States was not about to embark on a long-term military adventure in Syria, echoing US president Barack Obama’s pledge that any action would not be a repeat of the two controversial American wars of the past decade.

‘That’s not what we are talking about. We are not going to war. We will not have people at risk that way,’ he said during a press conference with his British counterpart William Hague in London, reports The Jerusalem Post.

‘We will be able to hold Bashar Assad accountable .... in a very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort.’

He said he understood the American and European people’s reticence about military action, but said that the risk of not acting in Syria was greater than the risk of acting.

Britain’s prime minister David Cameron suffered an embarrassing defeat in parliament last month, when the lawmakers voted against any British involvement in military action in Syria.

Polls have shown that the vote was a reflection of the sentiments of the UK population, which has also seen hundreds of its troops perish in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kerry had harsh words about Syrian president Bashar Assad, recalling a time he had confronted the Syria leader about the transfer of Scud missiles and Assad had ‘lied to my face’.

There is a ‘certain arrogance about the man’, Kerry said. He is ‘without credibility’.

BDST: 1551 HRS, SEPT 09, 2013
RoR/Jck