MOSCOW, September 14 (RIA Novosti) – The United States and Russia agreed a landmark deal Saturday that will see all chemical weapons in Syria brought under international control and destroyed by the middle of 2014.
The breakthrough comes after weeks of intense diplomacy and almost three days of intensive talks in Geneva between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his US counterpart John Kerry.
The United States had threatened a military strike on Syria for the regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons in the country’s ongoing civil war. Russia says that the chemical weapons were used by Syrian rebel fighters.
The agreement “could be the first critical, concrete step” towards ending the Syrian crisis and seeing peace in Syria, Kerry told a press conference in Geneva alongside Lavrov.
During their negotiations in recent days, Kerry said that he had reached a consensus with Lavrov on the quantity and types of chemical weapons in Syria.
The agreement between the two sides envisages that weapons inspectors will be on the ground in Syria by November, and all the country’s weapons will have been removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014, Kerry said.
© RIA Novosti.
Elimination of Chemical Weapons in the World
In a response to a Russian proposal last week that US military strikes could be avoided by placing Syrian chemical weapons under international control, Damascus officially submitted a request to join the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) on Thursday.
The disposal of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles will take place through the CWC, said Kerry, but it will be a “new process, a more vigorous process,” he said.
Lavrov and Kerry said that any violations in the process of removing chemical wepaons from Syria will be referred to the United Nations Security Council for the enactment of appropriate sanctions. “What remedy is chosen is subject to debate within the council,” said Kerry, although he added that the US President always retains the right to authorize the use of force.
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