Security Council members meet to discuss Syria

Envoys hold closed-door session to tackle resolution to strip Assad of his chemical weapons and destroy them

By ToI Staff 11 September 2013, 11:38 pm

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Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari, left, thanks a member of the Chinese UN delegation as China's UN Ambassador Li Baodong, second from right, and Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin look on, after a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria at the United Nations in New York in July 2012. (photo credit: AP)

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council met Wednesday in New York to discuss a plan for Syria to hand over its chemical weapons to international observers.

Envoys from Russia, the United States, China, France and Great Britain held a closed-door meeting for 45 minutes at Russia’s UN mission. Officials said that the sides presented their positions and that little discussion was held.

Representatives from the UK, US and France had convened ahead of the meeting of the five world powers, and one of the three diplomats voiced optimism ahead of the ad hoc conference.

“I think we’ll come to an agreement,” the diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“I understand they will be discussing general principles of plans to deal with Syria’s chemical weapons,” the report quoted another diplomat as saying. “They won’t really be discussing draft resolutions yet.”

According to a proposal being floated by France, Syria would have 15 days to disclose its entire chemical weapons stockpiles and allow them to come under international inspection and destruction.

Russia initially canceled a Security Council meeting scheduled for Tuesday, and has objected to the French proposal for its inclusion of an enforcement clause. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has disputed the assertion that the Bashar Assad regime used chemical weapons to kill over 1,400 people, according to US figures, in rebel-held neighborhoods on the outskirts of Damascus.

Russia’s Interfax news agency reported Wednesday that Moscow had handed its proposals over to the US ahead of a meeting between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva on Thursday. But US officials said Wednesday they did not have any substantive information from Russia.

In a speech Tuesday night from the White House, US President Barack Obama said the US and its allies would work with Russia and China to strip the Assad regime of chemical weapons and to ultimately destroy the stockpiles.