Bashar al-Assad: Syria will give up control of chemical weapons

Syrian president says move has been prompted by Russian diplomatic efforts, not US threats

Syria will cede control of its chemical weapons to the international community, the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, has said in a yet-to-be-aired interview on Russian television.

In what is believed to be his first public acknowledgement of the country’s chemical weapon stockpile, Interfax news agency quoted the president as saying the move had not been prompted by US military threats but Russian diplomatic efforts.

“Syria is placing its chemical weapons under international control because of Russia. The US threats did not influence the decision,” Interfax said, quoting the state-run Rossiya-24 channel’s yet-to-be-aired interview.

Assad also told Rossiya-24 that Syria would submit documents to the United Nations for an agreement governing the handover of its chemical arsenal.

The reports came hours before the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and US secretary of state, John Kerry, were due to meet in Geneva to discuss the proposal, which Lavrov announced on Monday along with Moscow’s plan for implementing it. [Full Article]

Will Syria Give Up Its Chemical Weapons

The US had been accused of ‘rushing to war’ against Syria, but an off-the-cuff statement by John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has spurred a possible breakthrough in the Syrian chemical weapons debate.

“He [Bashar al-Assad] can turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over, all of it without delay and allow a full and total accounting for that. But he isn’t about to do it and it can’t be done obviously,” Kerry said.

One of the first things that would need to be done is of course that the Syrian government declares its stockpiles … like it happened in the past, 20 years ago, [in] Iraq … So this declaration needs to be put forward, and based upon this declaration then [a] planning process within the UN for an inspection, with the first aim of inventorying the stockpile can start.

Dieter Rothbacher, operations director at Hotzone solutions

His suggestion that Damascus should give up its chemical weapons has been embraced by Russia and welcomed in Syria, and France says it will now put a proposal to the UN Security Council.

Russia seized upon the idea, proposing that Syria’s chemical weapons are placed under international control and then destroyed.

“We are currently working to prepare a workable, precise and concrete plan with the Syrian side. We are hoping to present this plan soon and we will be ready to work on it with the UN secretary general, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and members of the UN Security Council,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared.

That declaration led to the following statement from the French foreign minister, setting out the terms of a draft resolution to be submitted to the UN Security Council.

“Firstly, to condemn the August 21 massacre committed by the Syrian regime. Secondly, to demand from this regime to bring fully to light its chemical weapons programme, place it under international control and dismantle it. To outline very serious consequences in the case of Syria’s violation of its obligations. Finally, for the perpetrators of the August 21 massacre to be sanctioned in front of the International Criminal Court.”

Such a plan would possibly avert the need for a military intervention but questions are being raised about just how Syria would be expected to hand over its weapons of mass destruction – a monumantal task even in times of peace.

Syria is one of the few countries that have not to ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. This requires signatories to ‘exclude completely the possibility of the use of chemical weapons’.

Syria is said to have started its chemical weapons programme in the 1970s, helped first by Egypt, then the Soviet Union, but it was not until July last year that it publicly acknowledged possessing weapons of mass destruction.

This first step … can be very, very tricky and that’s the basis on which inspectors must work. I don’t think Assad’s government is going to tell the truth here.

Amy Smithson, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies

A foreign ministry spokesman stressed at the time: “No chemical or biological weapons will ever be used, and I repeat, will never be used, during the crisis in Syria no matter what the developments inside Syria.”

A French intelligence report released earlier this month said Syria had one of the biggest operational stocks of chemical weapons.

This is said to include more than 1,000 tonnes of sarin and mustard gas and neurotoxic agents – gases which attack the respiratory and nervous system and can be fatal within minutes of contact.

So, will Syria fully hand over its chemical weapons? And is this a feasible solution for the world and the US?