Russia opened up a possible diplomatic solution to the Syrian chemical weapons crisis on Monday with a pledge to persuade the Assad regime to hand over its chemical arsenal to international supervision to be destroyed.
Russia's new initiative was announced by its foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, hours after the US secretary of state, John Kerry, suggested that the Syrian government could avert punitive US air strikes in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack on 21 August, if it surrendered "every single bit" of its arsenal by the end of the week.
However, Kerry added that Assad "isn't about to do it", and the state department hastily issued a clarification saying that apparent ultimatum was "rhetorical" rather than a concrete bargaining position.
But Lavrov appeared to seize on the idea as a means of averting US military intervention. » | Julian Borger and Patrick Wintour | Monday, September 09. 2013
