GENEVA
— After days of intense negotiations, the United States and Russia reached
agreement Saturday on a framework to secure and destroy Syria's chemical
weapons by mid-2014 and impose U.N. penalties if the Assad government fails to
comply.
The
deal, announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, includes what Kerry called "a shared
assessment" of the weapons stockpile, and a timetable and measures for
Syrian President Bashar Assad to follow so that the full inventory can be
identified and seized.
The
U.S. and Russia agreed to immediately press for a U.N. Security Council
resolution that enshrines the chemical weapons agreement under Chapter 7 of the
U.N. Charter, which can authorize both the use of force and nonmilitary
measures.
President
Barack Obama made clear that "if diplomacy fails, the United States remains
prepared to act."
Russia,
which already has rejected three resolutions on Syria, would be sure to veto a
U.N. move toward military action, and U.S. officials said they did not
contemplate seeking such an authorization.
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