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Kerry warns Syria that US threat of force is real
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US Secretary of State John Kerry sent a strong warning to Syria yesterday, saying that “the threat of force is real” if it does not carry out an agreement to hand over its chemical weapons.
Kerry issued the warning during a stop in Jerusalem, where he briefed Israeli leaders on a US-Russian plan to rid neighboring Syria of its chemical weapons by the middle of next year.
“The threat of force remains, the threat is real,” Kerry said at a news conference in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We cannot have hollow words in the conduct of international affairs.”
He warned: “Make no mistake, we have taken no options off the table,” after news of the deal appeared to stave off the threat of a US-led military strike on the Syrian government.
Kerry described the Geneva understandings as a “framework, not a final agreement,” but one which had “the full ability” to strip all chemical weapons from Syria.
China welcomed the deal reached by the US and Russia to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, saying it would help promote a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
In a diplomatic breakthrough that averts the threat of US military action against the Syrian government for now, Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanded on Saturday that Syrian President Bashar Assad account for his secret stockpile within a week and let international inspectors eliminate all the weapons by the middle of next year.
“We believe that this framework agreement has ameliorated the present explosive and tense situation in Syria and has opened a new perspective on using peaceful methods to resolve the Syrian chemical weapons issue,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his visiting French counterpart Laurent Fabius in Beijing.
UN’s important role
“China upholds the finding of an appropriate resolution to the Syrian issue, including that of the chemical weapons, under the framework of the United Nations,” Wang added. “The UN Security Council should play an important role in this ... Military methods cannot resolve the Syria issue.”
Fabius said the deal on destroying the chemical weapons was “a significant step forward, but it’s a first stage.”
He added: “On one hand, we are going to move forward with the destruction of chemical weapons — bravo — but on the other hand, hundreds of deaths every day are mounting in Syria and that’s also what we must tackle, that is to say to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis.”
He said he would discuss the agreement and its implementation at a meeting in Paris today with Kerry and British Foreign Secretary William Hague.
Tomorrow he will meet his Russian counterpart, Lavrov, in Moscow.
Fabius also said a report by UN inspectors on last month’s chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus would be published today.
Syria’s Minister for National Reconciliation said yesterday that the chemical weapons agreement between Russia and the US was a “victory” for Damascus, won by its Russian allies, and had taken away the pretext for war.
“This agreement, an achievement of Russian diplomats and the Russian leadership, is a victory for Syria won thanks to our Russian friends,” Ali Haidar told Russian news agency RIA.
“We welcome this agreement. From one point of view, it will help Syrians exit the crisis, from another, it has prevented a war against Syria, having taken away the pretext for one from those who wanted to unleash it,” he said.
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