Obama Demands ‘Concrete’ Acts by Syria on Chemical Weapons
President Obama demanded Saturday that Syria take “concrete actions” proving it will surrender its chemical weapons as American and Russian negotiators moved closer to an agreement that would seek to transfer control of the Damascus government’s stockpiles of poison gas to the international community.
Mr. Obama said the Russian peace initiative and subsequent discussions were “positive developments” that could ultimately avert an American military strike in retaliation for a gas attack that the United States estimated killed more than 1,400 last month and blamed on the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
“If the current discussions produce a serious plan, I’m prepared to move forward with it,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “But we are not just going to take Russia and Assad’s word for it. We need to see concrete actions to demonstrate that Assad is serious about giving up his chemical weapons.” Just to be sure, he said he would keep American destroyers and other forces in the region for a possible punitive strike.
The president’s statements came after two days of marathon talks in Geneva between Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia. Both sides expressed optimism, while American officials here said they would give the process a couple of weeks to see if it gained traction. But daunting obstacles remain to dismantling Syria’s vast chemical arsenal as negotiators try to defuse a confrontation that has inflamed politics on three continents.
A significant sign of movement at the United Nations came Friday when the Obama administration effectively took force off the table in discussions over the shape of a Security Council resolution governing any deal with Syria. Although Mr. Obama reserved the right to order an American military strike without the United Nations’ backing if Syria reneges on its commitments, senior officials said he understood that Russia would never allow a Security Council resolution authorizing force.
As a strategic matter, that statement simply acknowledged the reality on the Security Council, where Russia wields a veto and has vowed to block any military action against Syria, its ally. But Mr. Obama’s decision to concede the point early in talks underscored his desire to forge a workable diplomatic compromise and avoid a strike that would be deeply unpopular at home. It came just days after France, his strongest supporter on Syria, proposed a resolution that included a threat of military action.
Instead, Mr. Obama will insist that any Security Council resolution build in other measures to enforce a deal with the government of President Bashar al-Assad, possibly including sanctions or other penalties, according to officials who requested anonymity in order to discuss negotiations candidly. The president would not agree to Syria’s demand to renounce any use of force, said the officials, who argued that it was the threat of force that had brought Moscow and Damascus to the negotiating table.
Administration officials were encouraged by the talks in Geneva. They said the Russians seemed serious enough to not simply be trying to disrupt the possibility of a military strike, but the officials added that there was no guarantee they could resolve significant disagreements on any eventual deal.
In Geneva, a senior administration official said the two sides had moved closer to consensus on the size of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, an essential prerequisite to any joint plan to control and dismantle it.
Russian officials arrived in Geneva with a substantially lower assessment of the arsenal’s size than the 1,000 tons Mr. Kerry had cited. But two days of talks between Russian and American arms control experts, including an intelligence briefing by the American side, came closer to producing a common understanding of the scope of Syria’s chemical weapons program.
Mr. Obama expressed cautious optimism on Friday after meeting at the White House with the visiting emir of Kuwait, Sheik Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah. “I shared with the emir my hope that the negotiations that are currently taking place between Secretary of State Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov in Geneva bear fruit,” the president said. “But I repeated what I’ve said publicly, which is that any agreement needs to be verifiable and enforceable.”
The administration has not laid out publicly how that might be achieved, and officials on Friday left open the possibility that there might be an acceptable alternative to a Security Council resolution, although they did not go into specifics. Verification, they said, cannot simply be a vague commitment but must be a concrete process.
Although the officials expressed wariness about a negotiating process that could drag on, they said talks served as a deterrent on their own because Mr. Assad presumably would not use chemical weapons in the interim.
The two sides meeting in Geneva focused their discussions on how Syria might work with the international organization that oversees compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Syria has agreed to sign. American officials declined to say how quickly Syria would be required to turn over data on its chemical weapons, but Mr. Kerry has made clear it must be faster than the 60 days allowed by the convention.
Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov worked late into the night Friday, holding an hourlong meeting that ended at midnight. One of the senior administration officials said the two sides were at a “pivotal point” in the talks.
The confrontation stems from an Aug. 21 attack in the Damascus suburbs that, according to American intelligence, killed more than 1,400 people. The United States and dozens of other countries have concluded that Mr. Assad’s government was responsible, but Syria and Russia deny that.
A report by United Nations inspectors set to be released in the coming days will be “overwhelming” in its conclusion that chemical weapons were used, Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general, said Friday.
Mr. Ban, in comments that he thought were private but that were inadvertently broadcast over an in-house United Nations television channel, said that Mr. Assad had “committed many crimes against humanity” during more than two years of civil war and that there would be a “process of accountability when everything is over.” Mr. Ban said he was “troubled” that the Security Council had not adopted any response, calling it “failure by the United Nations.”
Fighting raged across Syria on Friday as antigovernment activists reported shelling in or around nearly every major city. The death toll was reported by activists to be 22 by nightfall, small compared with that of many recent days. But artillery barrages and government warplane sorties went on all day, including clashes in Yarmouk Camp, a contested area home to many Palestinian refugees southeast of Damascus.
As deliberations continued in Geneva, Mr. Kerry’s aides announced that he would travel to other capitals to consult with allies. On Sunday, he will fly to Jerusalem to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Mr. Obama’s decision to defer military action to pursue the Russian initiative has stirred concern in Israel about the credibility of American policy toward Iran and its nuclear program.
After Jerusalem, Mr. Kerry plans to meet on Monday in Paris with the foreign ministers of America’s two principal allies on Syria, Laurent Fabius of France and William Hague of Britain.
After Russia this week proposed averting an American strike by having Syria give up its chemical weapons, Mr. Fabius proposed enforcing such a deal with a Security Council resolution invoking Chapter 7, a clause that allows United Nations members to use military action to enforce its provisions.
While in Paris, Mr. Kerry will also meet with Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, which has been a strong supporter of the anti-Assad Syrian opposition and an advocate of taking tough action after the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack.