The U.S. and Russia reached a deal on a process to remove or destroy Syria’s chemical weapons by mid-2014, officials for the two countries announced in Geneva on Saturday.
After a third day of talks, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov outlined the details of the deal, including a condition that Syria must provide a comprehensive list of its chemical weapons stockpiles within a week.
Kerry told reporters, “I have no doubt that the combination of the threat of force and the willingness to pursue diplomacy helped to bring us to this moment.”
Echoing Kerry, President Obama said on Saturday, “This this plan emerged only with a credible threat of U.S. military action.”
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However, as Howard Friel and Noam Chomsky have pointed out, the threats of force against Syria the U.S. has issued are illegal.
Obama also emphasized that the deal did not mean that the possibility of force was off the table. “We will maintain our military posture in the region to keep the pressure on the Assad regime,” he said. “If diplomacy fails, the United States and the international community must remain prepared to act.”
The “Framework for Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons” released by the State Department on Saturday states, in part:
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