Russia promised on Monday it would urge its ally Syria to surrender its chemical weapons to international control as part of an effort to avoid a military strike on the country.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put forth the proposal, and said he had already suggested the idea to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem and expected "a quick and [hopefully] positive answer,” Reuters reports. Lavrov asked Syria to not only give up their chemical weapons, but also for the destruction of their weapon storage sites and for Syria to fully join a treaty banning chemical weapons, Bloomgberg Businessweek writes.
According to The Wall Street Journal, US Secretary of State John Kerry made a statement earlier today that likely prompted Russia’s newfound cooperation, saying that to avoid a US strike, “[President Bashar al-Assad] could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week […] without delay and allow the full and total accounting for that, but […] it can't be done.”
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