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LequteMan
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Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad has agreed to release Syria’s chemical weapons to the international community to prevent being attacked by a U.S. coalition for using sarin gas to kill hundreds of Syrian civilians last month.
A UN team had inspected the infected area and proclaimed that chemical weapons had been in use but didn’t point to the culprit behind the attack.
The U.S-Russia accord negotiated last week in Geneva by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, says Assad must turn over a full inventory of his country’s chemical weapons arsenal by Sept. 21. That will then be subject to intrusive verification by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, OPCW. The accord added that the chemical weapons must then be destroyed within a year.
Speaking in an interview with Fox News yesterday, Assad said Syria will quickly make available information about its chemical weapons and open sensitive facilities to international inspectors.
“We are committed the full requirements” of the treaty and any delay in implementation “is not about will, it’s about techniques,” he said.
He didn’t dispute the findings of the UN team sent to inspect the attacked area for chemical weapons usage but still insisted that he wasn’t behind the attack. He fingered Syrian rebels as the perpetrators of the act.
The Bloomberg said Assad described the rebels as 80 percent to 90 percent jihadists, in effect dismissing the broad public opposition that started with peaceful protests, and he said that more than 15,000 government soldiers have died in the 2 1/2 years of fighting. While saying he is open to peace talks, his view of how that might proceed differs from that of opposition leaders, who insist that he must quit as part of any deal.
He said he’s been told that as much as $1 billion may be needed to destroy the chemical weapons in a year without creating environmental problems.
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