WORLD_ Diplomatic efforts intensify for international control of Syria's chemical weapons

Diplomatic efforts intensify for international control of Syria's chemical weapons

ABC NEWS
Posted 35 minutes ago

Diplomatic efforts toward placing Syria's chemical weapons under international control have intensified, with ambassadors from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council meeting in New York.


US secretary of state John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone one day before they meet in Geneva to try to forge a joint strategy on eliminating Syria's chemical arsenal.

In New York, envoys from the five permanent UN Security Council member states - the US, Britain, China, France and Russia - were meeting to discuss a French draft resolution.

It would give Syrian president Bashar al-Assad an ultimatum to give up his chemical weapons arsenal or face punitive measures, an approach which Russia rejects.

Overhanging the talks in Geneva is Russia's opposition to a continued threat of military action that the United States says is needed to ensure Syria complies.

Barack Obama says he had asked the US Congress to put off a vote on his request to authorise the use of military action to let diplomacy play out.

Mr Obama cited "encouraging signs" in recent days, in part because of the US threat of military action to punish Mr Assad for what the United States says was the Syrian government's use of poison gas that killed 1,400 civilians in Damascus on August 21.

Mr Kerry also planned to meet UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi while in Geneva, state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

At least two days of US-Russian talks are expected there, possibly more, Psaki said. Russia has given the United States its plan for placing Syria's chemical weapons arsenal under international control and intends to discuss it at the Geneva meeting, the Interfax news agency cited a Russian source as saying.

Russia has been Mr Assad's most powerful backer during the civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people since 2011, delivering arms and - with China - blocking three UN resolutions meant to pressure the Syrian president.

UN concludes Syrian forces responsible for massacres

In a reminder of the mounting atrocities committed in the Syrian civil war that began in 2011, a report by a UN commission of inquiry released in Geneva documented eight mass killings, attributing all but one to government forces.

The report said both government and rebel fighters had committed war crimes including murder, hostage-taking and shelling of civilians.

The commission, led by Paulo Pinheiro of Brazil, urged the UN Security Council to hold perpetrators accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The killings in Baida and Ras al-Nabaa, two pockets of rebel sympathisers surrounded by villages loyal to Mr Assad on the outskirts of the town of Banias, did not involve fighting with rebels and appeared designed to send a message of deterrence.

The Syria conflict began in March 2011 as an uprising against Mr Assad and descended into a civil war in which mostly Sunni Muslim rebels are pitted against Mr Assad's forces, who are backed by Shi'ite Muslim Iran and Hezbollah.

In Moscow, Russia's parliament urged the United States not to strike Syria, saying in a unanimous declaration that military action could be a "crime against the Syrian people".

The non-binding declaration by the State Duma, the lower chamber dominated by the Kremlin-controlled United Russia party, echoed the vociferous opposition by president Vladimir Putin to US military action.

The Duma expressed support for Russia's proposal to place Syria's chemical arsenal under international control, which Mr Putin said would only succeed if the US and its allies abandoned plans for possible military action.

The French government said it remained determined to punish Mr Assad over chemical weapons if diplomacy fails, and said a military strike was still possible.

As diplomatic efforts continues, violence goes on inside Syria

Meanwhile, there has been heavy fighting for control of an ancient Christian town, despite reports from the government that it had been retaken by regime troops.

Assad forces are fighting rebels from a group aligned with Al Qaeda in the town of Maaloula, whose residents still speak Aramaic- the language used in the time of Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile, a foreign watchdog group says at least 11 people were killed in a regime air strike on a field hospital in the northern province of Aleppo.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has called on the US and Russia to address the obstacles to delivering aid in Syria at their talks on Thursday.

Syrian government forces and rebels are both preventing medical assistance in particular from reaching the sick and wounded, ICRC president Peter Maurer said.
Reuters/BBC



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