US and Russia move ahead with agreement to remove, destroy Syria’s chemical weapons
The United States and Russia reached an agreement which calls for Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons to be removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014 and indefinitely stalled the prospect of American airstrikes.
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Secretary of State John F. Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, said the agreement would be backed by a U.N. Security Council resolution that could allow for sanctions or other consequences if Syria fails to comply.
Kerry said the first international inspection of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile is set for November, with destruction to begin next year. But Lavrov added a more cautious note to what was an otherwise jubilant moment in Geneva, where the talks took place.
Lavrov stressed that the documents released Saturday, outlining the transfer of Syria’s large chemical weapons arsenal and its destruction, constitute only an “agreed proposal” that does not yet have the force of law.
“This situation has no precedent,” said Amy E. Smithson, an expert on chemical weapons at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “They are cramming what would probably be five or six years’ worth of work into a period of several months, and they are undertaking this in an extremely difficult security environment due to the ongoing civil war.”
Although the agreement explicitly includes the United Nations Security Council for the first time in determining possible international action in Syria, Russia has maintained its opposition to any military action.
“Providing this effort is fully implemented, it can end the threat these weapons pose not only to the Syrian people, but also to their neighbors, to the region,” Kerry said.
The agreement, if successfully implemented, marks a modest victory for the Obama administration in its mostly arms-length engagement with Syria’s 2½-year-old conflict.
[…] Russia led the way for a destruction of chemical weapons back in 2013. […]