This is a file photo of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reached agreement Saturday on a framework for Syria to destroy all of its chemical weapons, and said they would seek a U.N. Security Council resolution that could authorize sanctions – short of military action – if Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government fails to comply.
The deal announced by the diplomats on the third day of intense negotiations in Geneva includes what Kerry called “a shared assessment” of Syria’s weapons stockpile, and a timetable and measures for Assad’s government to comply.
“The world will now expect the Assad regime to live up to its public commitment,” Kerry told a packed news conference in the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, where he has been staying and the negotiations were conducted since Thursday night. “There can be no games, no room for avoidance, or anything less than full compliance by the Assad regime.”
The deal calls for international inspectors to be on the ground in Syria by November and to complete their initial work by the end of that month. All of Syria’s chemical weapons stocks, material and equipment would have to be destroyed or removed by mid-2014.
Administration officials had said that President Barack Obama was open to a Security Council resolution that did not include military force as a punishment if Assad doesn’t follow through on promises regarding the weapons. While Russia would be all but certain to veto any measure with such a penalty, Obama’s willingness to concede the point – after threatening a U.S.-led military strike with or without approval by the U.S. Congress – provided a step forward.