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| U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks next to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, right, during a press conference before their meeting to discuss the ongoing crisis in Syria, in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday Sept. 12, 2013. Secretary of State John Kerry and his team have opened two days of meetings with their Russian counterparts in Geneva. Kerry is hoping to come away with the outlines of a plan for securing and destroying vast stockpiles of Syrian chemical weapons. |
GENEVA (AP)
-- Striking a tough tone, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry opened
swiftly convened talks with Russia on Syria's chemical weapons Thursday
by bluntly rejecting a Syrian pledge to begin a "standard process" by
turning over information rather than weapons - and nothing immediately.
That
won't do, Kerry declared at an opening news conference, a stone-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," Kerry said of the latest developments in a series that
has rapidly gone from deadly chemical attacks to threats of retaliatory
U.S. 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," Kerry declared. And he kept alive the threat of
U.S. 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."
Adding to the drama,
Russian President Vladimir Putin weighed in from afar, raising eyebrows
with an opinion piece in The New York Times that chided Americans for
seeing themselves as "exceptional." That was an apparent reference to a
comment President Barack Obama made in his Syria speech Tuesday night,
explaining why he felt the U.S. needed to take action. Congress has
shown little inclination to authorize military action, and a vote on
that has been put off.
Putin also warned that a
U.S. strike against Syria because of chemical weapons use could unleash
new terrorist attacks. And he still maintained there is "every reason
to believe" the weapons were used by rebels and not by Assad's military.
In Washington, Obama's spokesman said Russia was "isolated and alone"
in that view.
Obama, for his part, said simply that he was hoping for "a concrete result" from the talks.
The
back-and-forth was a stark indication of the challenging work ahead as
Kerry, Lavrov and their teams of chemical weapons experts plunge into
talks aimed at finding agreement on how to dismantle the chemical
weapons amid the confusion and danger of Syria's civil war.
Lavrov
seemed to contradict Kerry's negative view of Syrian President Bashar
Assad's offer to provide details on his country's chemical arsenal
beginning 30 days after it signs an international convention banning
such weapons. Syria's ambassador to the United Nations said that as of
Thursday his country had become a full member of the treaty, which
requires destruction of all chemical weapons.
The
Russian said the initiative must proceed "in strict compliance with the
rules that are established by the Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons." That suggests Russia does not agree with the U.S.
that this is an exceptional case and that Syria should face tougher
standards than other countries.
"We proceed
from the fact that the solution to this problem will make unnecessary
any strike on the Syrian Arab Republic, and I am convinced that our
American colleagues, as President Obama stated, are firmly convinced
that we should follow a peaceful way of resolution to the conflict in
Syria." Lavrov said.
The distrust in U.S.-Russia relations was on display even in an off-hand parting exchange at the news conference.
Just before it ended, Kerry asked the Russian translator to repeat part of Lavrov's concluding remarks.
When
it was clear that Kerry wasn't going to get an immediate
re-translation, Lavrov apparently tried to assure him that he hadn't
said anything controversial. "It was OK, John, don't worry," he said.
"You want me to take your word for it?" Kerry asked Lavrov. "It's a little early for that."
They were smiling at that point.
Shortly after making their opening statements, the two went into a private dinner. Talks were to resume Friday.
The
meetings in Geneva got underway as Assad, in an interview with Russia's
Rossiya-24 TV, said his government would start submitting data on its
chemical weapons stockpile a month after signing the convention. He also
said the Russian proposal for securing the weapons could work only if
the U.S. halted threats of military action.
But Kerry, who met earlier Thursday with Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria, made clear the threat remains.
"President
Obama has been clear that should diplomacy fail, force might be
necessary to deter and degrade Assad's capacity to deliver these
weapons," he said. "It won't get rid of them, but it could change his
willingness to use them."
Even as diplomacy
took center stage, word surfaced that the CIA has been delivering light
machine guns and other small arms to Syrian rebels for several weeks,
following Obama's statement in June that he would provide lethal aid to
the rebels.
The U.S. is hoping that an
acceptable agreement with the Russians can be part of a binding new U.N.
Security Council resolution being negotiated that demands that Syria's
chemical weapons be put under international control and dismantled and
condemns the Aug. 21 attack that led to the current crisis. Russia has
long opposed U.N. action on Syria, has vetoed three earlier resolutions
and has not indicated it is willing to go along with one now.
As
for arming the Syrian rebels, White House National Security Council
spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said the administration could not "detail
every single type of support that we are providing to the opposition or
discuss timelines for delivery, but it's important to note that both the
political and the military opposition are and will be receiving this
assistance."
Current and former U.S.
intelligence officials said the CIA has arranged for the Syrian
opposition to receive anti-tank weaponry such as rocket-propelled
grenades through a third party, presumably one of the Gulf countries
that have been arming the rebels. They spoke on condition of anonymity
because they were not authorized to discuss the classified program
publicly.
Loay al-Mikdad, a spokesman for the
Free Syrian Army, told The Associated Press that his group expected to
receive weapons in the near future.
"We are
cooperating with the American administration and have been receiving
some logistical and technical assistance and there are commitments by
the administration to arm us but until now we have not received any
weapons," al-Mikdad said by telephone.
The U.S. officials said the aid has been arriving for more than a month.
The
U.S. team with Kerry in Geneva includes officials who worked on
inspection and removal of unconventional weapons from Libya after 2003
and in Iraq after the first Gulf War. Officials with Kerry said the
teams that eventually go into Syria would have to be an international
mix.
The meetings are taking place in the same
hotel where former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 gave
Lavrov a symbolic "reset button" as a goodwill gesture and a reminder of
the Obama administration's efforts to improve U.S.-Russian relations.
