Syria President: We Will Hand Over Chemical Weapons – But Not Because of US Threats

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has appeared on Russian state TV to confirm that the country’s chemical weapons will be handed over and placed under international control.

Speaking to Rossiya 24, Mr Assad said the decision came following a Russian initiative, not because of the US threat of a military strike.

“Syria is placing its chemical weapons under international control because of Russia. The US threats did not influence the decision”, he confirmed on the state run channel.

His announcement came as US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov prepared for crucial talks in Geneva. A Russian newspaper leaked the eastern European country’s four-point plan to disarm Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.

Kommersant, famed for its established contacts among Russian diplomats, said a source had given it advanced details of the plan, sent to the US on Tuesday, which alongside a French draft UN resolution will form the basis for discussions today.

According to the scheme, Syria would first have to join the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). It would then declare the full details of its storage and production facilities for chemical weapons, and subsequently admit OPCW inspectors to assess the extent of the stockpiles.

Finally, the Assad government would work with the OPCW to decide where and how the materials would be disposed of.

The plans are considerably less stringent than those the French would like to impose, and do not include the threat of military action if at any point Syria fails to comply.

That stipulation, previously criticised by Vladimir Putin, is set to be one of the major points of contention today in Geneva.

Reports suggested that diplomats at the UN were working late into the night yesterday revising the initial French draft for a resolution demanding Mr Assad hand over his chemical weapons. The earlier proposals, leaked at the start of the week, would give Syria 15 days to give a full inventory of its stockpile, and included an explicit condemnation of the regime – something Russia has thus far stopped well short of.

France is also determined that any plan does not rule out punishment for those responsible for the gas attack on Damascus on 21 August, ideally through the International Criminal Court.

UN inspectors are concerned that all of the plans being tabled at the moment underestimate the extent of the work involved in fully disarming a nation of weapons used for mass destruction.

Dieter Rothbacher, a former inspector, said Syria “has one of the biggest chemical weapons programmes in the region and even in the world”.

“There are calculations that to secure them up to 75,000 ground troops are needed. It took us three years to destroy that stuff under UN supervision in Iraq,” he said.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has made a personal appeal to the American people, calling for caution when dealing with Syria and warning that a military strike would “unleash a new wave of terrorism”.

Writing an opinion piece for The New York Times, the Russian president drew attention to previous Western military interventions in the Middle East, when he said “force proved ineffective and pointless”.

Russia still does not accept that the blame for the Damascus chemical weapons attack should fall on dictator Bashar al-Assad’s government, but Mr Putin did admit “no one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria”. He added that there was “every reason to believe” the rebels committed the 21 August atrocities in an attempt to force international intervention.

The article appeared not long after the public address from Mr Obama saying plans for military strikes would be put on hold, and Mr Putin referred to the “statements of President Obama” in describing the seizure of Assad’s chemical weapons as “a new opportunity to avoid military action [which] has emerged in the past few days”.

He said that diplomacy wrought by the UN, an organisation stemming from a time when the US and Russia “defeated the Nazis together”, was the only way to protect international law.

Finally, the Russian leader warned America that strikes on Syria would “increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism”. He said it was not in the US’s “long-term interest” to keep using the “language of force”, and that doing so would ultimately just lead other countries to seek protection through armament.

Posted by Editor on September 12, 2013. Filed under WORLD. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry