GENEVA — The United States and Russia have reached an agreement that calls for Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons to be removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday.Under a “framework” agreement, international inspectors must be on the ground in Syria by November, Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a news conference with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey V. Lavrov. In addition, Syria must submit a “comprehensive listing” of its chemical weapons stockpiles within a week.
American and Russian officials also reached a consensus on the size of Syria’s stockpile, an essential prerequisite to any international plan to control and dismantle the weapons.“If fully implemented,” Mr. Kerry said, “this framework can provide greater protection and security to the world.”If President Bashar al-Assad of Syria fails to comply with the agreement, the issue will be referred to the United Nations Security Council.Mr. Kerry said that any violations would then be taken up under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which authorizes punitive action. But Mr. Lavrov made clear that Russia, which wields a veto in the Security Council, had not withdrawn its objections to the use of force.
The joint announcement, which took place on the third day of intensive talks here, eased the United States’ confrontation with Syria.Arms control officials on both sides worked into the night, a process that recalled the treaty negotiations during the cold war.The issue of removing Syria’s chemical arms broke into the open on Monday when Mr. Kerry, in a news conference in London, posed the question as to whether Mr. Assad could rapidly be disarmed only to state that he did not see how it could be done.
“He could 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,” Mr. Kerry said. “But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously.”
Now, however, what once seemed impossible has become the plan — one that will depend on Mr. Assad’s cooperation and that will need to be put in place in the middle of a civil war.Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov had a series of meeting on Friday, including a session that ended at midnight. On Saturday morning, the two sides reconvened with their arms controls experts on the hotel pool deck, sitting under a white umbrella drinking coffee as they pored over the text of the agreement.Before the news conference, Mr. Lavrov said that he had not spoken with Syrian officials while he was negotiating in Geneva. Obama administration officials say the Russia’s role was critical since it has been a major backer of the Assad government.Entitled “Framework For Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons,” the agreement is four pages, including its technical annexes. The agreement, which outlines procedures for “expeditious destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons program and stringent verification,” says that the United States and Russia will submit a plan in the next several days to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which oversees compliance with the chemical weapons accord.
Under the framework, the initial inspection of the chemical weapons sites that the Syrian government declares must be completed by November. Equipment for producing chemical weapons and filling munitions with poison gas must be destroyed by November.The document also says that there is to be “complete elimination of all chemical weapons material and equipment in the first half of 2014.”The framework agreement and the annexes are to be incorporated in a United Nations Security Council resolution that is to be adopted New York. A senior administration official said the schedule outlined in the documents “is daunting, to say the least.” The agreement notes that the United States and Russia have reached a “shared assessment” on the amount and the type of chemical weapons involved, “and are committed to the immediate international control over chemical weapons and their components in Syria.”
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