Obama Encourages Effort to Control Syrian Chemical Weapons

Obama Encourages Effort to Control Syrian Chemical Weapons

Washington, 11 September 2013 — President Obama said U.S. support for a diplomatic resolution of the crisis in Syria, sparked by the use of poison nerve gas to kill 1,429 civilians, is based on a rapidly developing international effort to take control of the Syrian regime’s sizable stockpile of lethal chemical weapons.

In the past few days there have been encouraging signs, in part because of the use of a credible threat of U.S. military action, that the regime of Bashar al-Assad is willing to give up its chemical weapons to the international community under the control of the United Nations, Obama said in a nationally televised address to the American people September 10.

The Assad regime has also indicated that it is willing to join the international Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits their use, the president added.

“It’s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments,” Obama said. “But this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force.”

Speaking from the East Room of the White House, Obama told the national audience that he has asked the U.S. Congress to delay a vote to authorize the use of a limited U.S. military response while Secretary of State John Kerry and American diplomats pursue diplomacy.

Kerry is headed to Geneva on September 11 to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, while the president continues talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and representatives of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council meet in a special session on September 11. Russia is a close ally of Syria.

“If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons. As the ban against these weapons erodes, other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas,” the president said.

The crisis was caused August 21 when Syrian military forces attacked 11 Damascus neighborhoods with chemical artillery and mortar weapons, killing 1,429 Syrian civilians, including 426 children.

“The world saw in gruesome detail the terrible nature of chemical weapons, and why the overwhelming majority of humanity has declared them off-limits — a crime against humanity, and a violation of the laws of war,” Obama said.

Nearly 98 percent of the nations of the world have ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, which expressly prohibits the use of such weapons worldwide; Syria remains one of four nations that have not signed or ratified the treaty. Syria has the largest chemical weapons stockpile in the Middle East — including mustard gas, sarin and VX — and thousands of munitions to deliver chemical agents.

According to the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have been killed in the ongoing Syrian civil war, which began in March 2011.

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