Syria declares victory, thanks Russia

September 16, 2013 by Agency Reporter Leave a Comment

   

A Syrian minister declared “victory” for his country on Sunday, thanking Russia for orchestrating a chemical weapons deal to avert United States military action, Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported.

“We welcome these agreements. On the one hand, they will help Syrians come out of the crisis, and on the other hand, they prevented the war against Syria by having removed a pretext for those who wanted to unleash it,” National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar was quoted as saying.

He called the deal an achievement of Russian diplomacy, and “a victory for Syria won thanks to our Russian friends,” RIA Novosti reported.

The Syrian regime recently created the “national reconciliation” post to send a message that it wants to end the brutal violence that has led to more than 100,000 deaths, according to UN estimates.

The opposition ridiculed the post as mere window dressing. Haidar is not part of President Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle and does not speak for the entire regime.

And in Israel, where he met Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters that “the threat of force remains” to make sure Syria follows through with the agreement.

“I want people to understand the key elements of what we agreed to in Geneva. It is a framework, not a final agreement,” he said. “It is a framework that must be put into effect by the United Nations now.”

Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stood side by side Saturday in Geneva, Switzerland, as they set out a series of steps the Syrian government must take to eliminate its chemical weapons. Under the plan, Damascus must submit a comprehensive list of its chemical arsenal within one week, and international inspectors must be on the ground no later than November.

Senior US State Department officials said that according to the timeline, initial inspections of declared chemical weapons sites must be completed by November; all production and mixing and filling equipment must be destroyed by November; and all chemical weapons material must be eliminated by mid-2014.

The verification and destruction process will be carried out by personnel from both the United  Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the body that implements the international ban on chemical weapons use, according to the framework agreement.

Russia and the United States will now work to get a UN Security Council resolution that will keep the process under review and allow the Security Council to consider the use of force if Syria fails to comply.

China said Sunday it welcomed the deal.

“We believe this framework agreement has cooled the tense situation in Syria and has opened a new opportunity to use a peaceful means to resolve the chemical weapons issue,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said after a meeting with visiting French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

China, like Russia, is a Syrian ally. Like Russia, it has veto power in the UN Security Council.

But a ban on chemical weapons isn’t enough, a Syrian opposition group said Sunday. It called for the Syrian regime to end the use of air power over populated areas.