Decision on military strikes against Syria hang in the balance

Hope of avoiding military strikes against Syria hang in the balance

NEW YORK // Hope of averting western military strikes on Syria hung in the balance yesterday as France, together with Britain and the United States, prepared to table a UN Security Council resolution to commit Syria to a timetable for handing over its chemical weapons.
Russia, which proposed the idea on Monday, said yesterday that it was opposed to a binding resolution, though Syria reiterated its willingness to cede control of its chemical weapons.
"We are ready to state where the chemical weapons are, to halt production of chemical weapons and show these installations to representatives of Russia, other countries and the UN," the Syrian foreign minister, Walid Al Muallem, said in a statement sent to Russia's Interfax news agency.
The US president Barack Obama had earlier given a cautious if sceptical welcome to Moscow's plan to put Damascus's chemical arsenal under United Nations control. He could delay a congressional vote on whether to launch military strikes on Syria as the diplomatic initiative gathered momentum, US media reported. Mr Obama's main ally, France, seized the diplomatic initiative and demanded more.
The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said France had drafted a resolution requiring Syria's acceptance that its stockpiles - 1,000 tonnes of mustard gas, sarin and VX gas, according to French estimates - should be "dismantled".
Mr Fabius told journalists in Paris that this demand was covered by the Russian proposal to put Damascus's chemical arsenal under UN control.
But he also said the resolution would threaten "extremely serious consequences" for Syria if Bashar Al Assad's regime breached its conditions.
Significantly, the resolution also places guilt for the August 21 massacre near Damascus, in which the US alleges 1,429 people were killed by poison gas, squarely on the regime. Russia has so far refused to accept this and Mr Assad accuses rebel forces of being responsible.
Hours after France announced its proposal, a bipartisan group of eight US senators began drafting an alternative proposal that would set a time frame for the UN to take control of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile.
The group includes some of the most vocal advocates of the original White House plan for punitive strikes, as well as critics. If the new plan gains broad political momentum in Washington it could save Mr Obama from what appeared likely to be a defeat of the original resolution authorising US military action in Syria.
The new proposal was still being drafted, but according to Senate aides quoted in the US media, the White House is being consulted on the plan.
If Syria does not meet the time frame, the resolution would authorise the White House to order military intervention.
Some experts, however, were sceptical that such a plan is logistically feasible, raising questions over whether the Russian initiative was little more than a play for time and a way of keeping Mr Al Assad in power.
Mr Fabius said after discussing the Russian plan with the French president, Francois Hollande: "We welcome this new position with interest, but also with caution. We don't want it to be used as a diversionary tactic. "
The resolution demanded that those responsible for the August 21 massacre should be punished "in the international criminal justice system".
France allowed wriggle room by saying the text would be "examined and, if need be, amended by our partners and by the Security Council". But it added that the sincerity of Syria's intentions would be judged on "acceptance of these specific conditions".
The US and France, as the two western powers prepared to launch "selective" but punitive military strikes against Syria, still need convincing that the Russian proposal, readily accepted by Damascus, is genuine and can be trusted.
China voiced swift support for the Russian proposals while Israel and Turkey remained deeply suspicious. Russia and China have blocked any move to give the use of force against the Assad government UN legitimacy.
Mr Obama, in an interview with the NBC network, said the initiative "could potentially be a significant breakthrough" even if he also cautioned that it needed to be taken, initially, with "grain of salt". The US president was due to make an address to the nation late last night hat was originally intended to rally limited public support for strikes.
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