[An immediate test of the viability of the
accord will come within a week, when the Syrian government is to provide a
“comprehensive listing” of its chemical arsenal. That list is to include the
types and quantities of Syria’s poison gas, the chemical munitions it
possesses, and the location of its storage, production and research sites.]
GENEVA
— The United States and Russia reached a sweeping agreement on
Saturday that called for Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons to be removed or
destroyed by the middle of 2014 and indefinitely stalled the prospect of
American airstrikes.
However, the joint announcement, on the third
day of intensive talks in Geneva, also set the stage for one of the most
challenging undertakings in the history of arms control.
“This situation has no precedent,” said Amy E.
Smithson, an expert on chemical weapons at the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “They are cramming what would
probably be five or six years’ worth of work into a period of several months,
and they are undertaking this in an extremely difficult security environment
due to the ongoing civil war.”
Although the agreement explicitly includes the
United Nations Security Council for the first time in determining possible
international action in Syria, Russia has maintained its opposition to any
military action.
But George Little, the Pentagon press secretary,
emphasized that the possibility of unilateral American military force was still
on the table. “We haven’t made any changes to our force posture to this point,”
Mr. Little said. “The credible threat of military force has been key to driving
diplomatic progress, and it’s important that the Assad regime lives up to its
obligations under the framework agreement.”
In Syria, the state news agency, SANA, voiced
cautious approval of the Russian and American deal, calling it “a starting
point,” though the government issued no immediate statement about its
willingness to implement the agreement.
In any case, the deal represented at least a
temporary reprieve for President Bashar al-Assad and his Syrian government, and
it formally placed international decision-making about Syria into the purview
of Russia, one of Mr. Assad’s staunchest supporters and military suppliers.
That reality was bitterly seized on by the
fractured Syrian rebel forces, most of which have pleaded for American
airstrikes. Gen. Salim Idris, the head of the Western-backed rebels’ nominal
military command, the Supreme Military Council,
denounced the initiative.
“All of this initiative does not interest us.
Russia is a partner with the regime in killing the Syrian people,” he told
reporters in Istanbul. “A crime against humanity has been committed, and there
is not any mention of accountability.”
An immediate test of the viability of the accord
will come within a week, when the Syrian government is to provide a
“comprehensive listing” of its chemical arsenal. That list is to include the
types and quantities of Syria’s poison gas, the chemical munitions it
possesses, and the location of its storage, production and research sites.
“The real final responsibility here is Syrian,”
a senior Obama administration official said of the deal.
Speaking at a joint news conference with his
Russian counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry said that “if fully
implemented, this framework can provide greater protection and security to the
world.”
If Mr. Assad fails to comply with the agreement,
the issue would be referred to the United Nations Security Council, where the
violations would be taken up under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter,
which authorizes punitive action, Mr. Kerry said.
Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia made
clear that Russia, which wields a veto in the Security Council, had not
withdrawn its objections to the use of force.
If the Russians objected to punishing Syrian
noncompliance with military action, however, the United States would still have
the option of acting without the Security Council’s approval.
The issue of removing Syria’s chemical arms
broke into the open on Monday when Mr. Kerry, at a news conference in London,
posed the question as to whether Mr. Assad could rapidly be disarmed only to
state that he did not see how it could be done.
Now, however, what once seemed impossible has
become the plan — one that will depend on Mr. Assad’s cooperation and that will
need to be put in place in the middle of a fierce conflict.
To hammer out the agreement, arms control
officials on both sides worked into the night, a process that recalled the
treaty negotiations during the cold war.
Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov held a marathon series
of meetings on Friday, including a session that ended at midnight. On Saturday
morning, the two sides reconvened with their arms-controls experts on the hotel
pool deck as they pored over the text of the agreement.
Obama administration officials say that Russia’s
role was critical since it has been a major backer of the Assad government, and
the American assumption is that much if not all of the accord has Mr. Assad’s
assent.
At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon pledged to support the agreement, and he announced that Syria had also
formally acceded to the international Chemical Weapons Convention, effective
Oct. 14.
Foreign Secretary William Hague of Britain
issued a statement after a call with Mr. Kerry in which he welcomed the
framework agreement on Syrian chemical weapons, describing it as a “a significant
step forward.”
It was a British Parliamentary vote against
conducting airstrikes that put off momentum by the United States, France and
Britain to conduct airstrikes in the wake of the August chemical strike within
Syria.
“The priority must now be full and prompt
implementation of the agreement, to ensure the transfer of Syria’s chemical
weapons to international control,” Mr. Hague said.Under the agreement, titled
“Framework For Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons,” an inspection of the
chemical weapons sites that the Syrian government declares must be completed by
November. Equipment for producing chemical weapons and filling munitions with
poison gas must be destroyed by November.
The document also says that there is to be
“complete elimination of all chemical weapons material and equipment in the
first half of 2014.”
A priority under the agreement reached Saturday
is to take steps to preclude or diminish the Assad government’s ability to
employ chemical weapons before they are destroyed.
An American official said that such steps could
include burning the least volatile component of binary weapons, a type of
chemical agent that becomes potent only when separate elements are mixed. Another
way to disable at least part of Syria’s stockpile, the official said, is to
destroy the equipment for mixing the binary component or destroying the
munitions or bombs that would be filed with chemical agents.
An American official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity under State Department protocol, said that United States and Russia
had agreed that Syria has 1,000 tons of chemical weapons, including Sarin and
mustard gas.
The United States believes there are at least 45
sites in Syria associated with its chemical weapons program. Nearly half
of these have “exploitable quantities” of chemical weapons, though the American
official says that some of the agents may have been moved by the Assad
government.
The American official said there was no
indication that any of Syria’s chemical stocks had been moved to Iraq or
Lebanon, as the Syrian opposition had charged. “We believe they are under
regime control,” the official said.
Russia has not accepted the American data on the
number of chemical weapons sites. The difference may reflect the larger
disagreement as to who was responsible for an Aug. 21 attack that the United
States says killed at least 1,400 civilians, many of them women and children.
If the Russians were to agree both on the number
of chemical weapons sites and the fact that, as American officials believe, the
sites are all in government-controlled areas, that would suggest that the Assad
government was culpable for the attack and not the rebel forces as the Russians
have asserted.
The four-page framework agreement, including its
technical annexes, are to be incorporated in a United Nations Security Council
resolution that is to be adopted in New York.
One concern about how to implement the deal,
however, involves how to protect international inspectors who come to Syria.
There will be no cease-fire so the inspectors can carry out their work.
Asked whether rebels would aid the inspectors,
General Idris, the Western-backed rebel military commander, called the issue
“complicated,” saying, “If investigators come, we will facilitate the mission.”
He said there were no chemical weapons in
rebel-controlled areas, adding, “I don’t know if this will just mean that
investigators will pass through the regions that are under rebel control. We
are ready.”
The sense of betrayal among nominally
pro-Western factions in the opposition has grown intensely in recent days.
In the northern Syrian province of Idlib, a
rebel stronghold, one commander said that the agreement on Saturday proved that
the United States no longer cared about helping Syrians and was leaving them at
the mercy of a government backed by powerful allies in Russia and Iran.
Maysara, a commander of a battalion in Saraqeb,
said in an interview that he had paid little attention to the diplomacy on
Saturday.
“I don’t care about deals anymore,” he said in
an interview. “The Americans found a way out of the strike.”
He added: “The Russians did what they want. The
Americans lied, and the lie was believed — the the U.S. doesn’t want democracy
in Syria. Now I have doubts about the U.S. capacities, their military and
intelligence capacities. The Iranian capacity is much stronger, I guess.”
Peter Baker contributed reporting from
Washington, and Anne Barnard from Beirut.