NEW YORK - The US will not pull its troops out of Syria until Washington's goals are accomplished, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said Sunday.

According to Haley, the three aims for the US are ensuring chemical weapons are not used in any way that poses a risk to US interests; Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) is defeated; and there is a good vantage point to watch what Iran is doing.

"[It is our goal] to see American troops come home, but we are not going to leave until we know we have accomplished those things," Haley said on Fox News on Sunday.

In a separate interview, Haley said that the US was preparing new sanctions on Russia over its continued support of Syrian President Bashar-al Assad.

The sanctions would be announced by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday, Haley said on CBS.

Putin warns against further strikes

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Iranian Presiden Hassan Rouhani that further attacks by Western allies in Syria would inevitably lead to chaos in international relations.

In a phone conversation on Sunday, the two leaders agreed that "this illegal action seriously damages the prospects for a political settlement in Syria," Russian news agency RIA quoted the Kremlin press service as saying.

Putin and Rouhani were discussing the situation in Syria after the United States, France and Britain launched coordinated attacks on Syria's alleged chemical facilities,

"Putin stressed that if such actions, committed in violation of the UN Charter, continue, it will inevitably lead to chaos in international relations," RIA added.

Story Date: April 16, 2018