Syrian President Bashar Assad says he won't give up Syria's chemical arsenal unless the U.S. stops arming rebels.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Syrian President Bashar Assad says he won't give up Syria's chemical arsenal unless the U.S. stops arming rebels.

Los Angeles Times WORLD

Assad makes new demands as Kerry, Lavrov meet on chemical weapons

Secretary of State John F. Kerry, left, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hold a news conference after their talks in Geneva. (Philippe Desmazes / AFP/Getty Images / September 12, 2013)

By Paul Richter and Sergei L. Loiko

September 12, 2013, 6:14 p.m.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John F. Kerry and his Russian counterpart huddled Thursday in Geneva in a push to disarm Syria of chemical weapons, even as Syrian President Bashar Assad warned that he wouldn't surrender his toxic arsenal unless the Obama administration stopped arming rebels battling to overthrow his government.
Assad's comments suggested another hurdle for the hastily arranged talks, which were already fraught with considerable risk, and threatened a separate diplomatic process at the United Nations. They underscored the limits of Moscow's leverage over the embattled Syrian ruler, who faces a mortal threat from insurgents in a bitter civil war.
Neither Kerry nor Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov directly responded to Assad's demands when they met with reporters. Both sought to project optimism about resolving the crisis that erupted after the U.S. said that more than 1,000 Syrians were killed in poison gas attacks outside Damascus last month.
"We do believe there is a way to get this done," Kerry said. But he repeated President Obama's warning that if diplomacy failed, "force might be necessary to deter and degrade Assad's capacity to deliver these weapons."
"We proceed from the fact that the solution of this problem will make unnecessary" any U.S. airstrikes on Syria, Lavrov said.
Both diplomats brought teams of arms control experts, legal specialists and other aides to the talks, which are taking place in the Swiss city where the first ban on poison gas was signed nearly a century ago after the horrors of World War I.
In brief comments at the White House, Obama said he hoped the negotiations "can yield a concrete result." He said Kerry would work hard "over the next several days to see what the possibilities are."
The talks represent Moscow's attempt to reclaim a dominant position on the world stage after years of decline, and have cast Russian President Vladimir Putin in the unlikely role of peacemaker. He vowed this week to force Assad's government to let international monitors impound, safeguard and ultimately destroy Syria's chemical weapons.

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That will not do, Mr Kerry declared at an opening news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, with stony-faced Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at his side. "The words of the Syrian regime in our judgment are simply not enough."
"This is not a game," Mr Kerry said of the latest developments in a series that has rapidly gone from deadly chemical attacks to threats of retaliatory US air strikes to Syrian agreement with a Russian plan to turn over the weapons and, finally, to the crucial matter of working out the difficult details.
"We believe there is nothing standard about this process at this moment because of the way the regime has behaved," Mr Kerry declared. And he kept alive the threat of US military action, saying the turnover of weapons must be complete, verifiable and timely - "and finally, there ought to consequences if it doesn't take place".

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