Russia has handed United States a plan for the Syrian regime to hand over its chemical weapons in four stages, starting with Damascus becoming a member of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a report said on Thursday.
The plan, first announced by Moscow this week, aims to avert threatened US military action in retribution for a chemical weapons attack outside Damascus that the West says was perpetrated by the Syrian regime.
Revealing the details of the plan for the first time, Russia’s Kommersant daily said it had been given to the American side on Tuesday, although Russia only announced on Wednesday evening that the plan had been passed on.
Speaking in the Kazakh capital Astana, Russia foreign minister Sergei Lavrov did not give details of the plan but said it would work ‘on the understanding that’ it would allow force not to be used. As a first step, Damascus would join OPCW, Kommersant said, quoting a Russian diplomatic source
Then Syria would have to declare the location of the chemical weapons arsenals and where they are made. The third step would be allowing OPCW inspectors into Syria to examine them.
The fourth step would be to decide, in cooperation with inspectors, who will destroy the weapons. It might be done jointly by US and Russia.