US, Syria Agree Syria Chemical Weapons Deal

After the brinkmanship that created unprecedented uncertainty, the United States and Russia have reached a deal on Syria’s chemical weapons programme.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said this at a joint press conference on Saturday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

This was after three days of talks.

Kerry said the agreement was for Syria to provide the UN with full access to its chemical sites, and insisted that the plan to remove the chemical arsenal should be transparent. UN inspectors must be allowed on the ground no later than November 2013 and the exercise must be complete by mid 2014.

Failure to do so would mean invoking UN Charter Chapter 7 which essentially allows for the use of force.

Lavrov seemed to differ 0n the use of force saying any breaches would be brought before the UN Security Council and be dealt with then saying a deviation did not mean automatically invoking use of force.

The world came to a standstill as the possibility of war became real a few weeks ago after the US accused the government of Basher Al-Assad of using chemical weapons on its own people in the ongoing conflict against rebels. Russia differed with the US saying that there was no evidence that this was the action of the Syrian government adding that the rebels had more to gain from such an act than the Assad government.

With information from Russia Today