Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that a Russian proposal aiming to place Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons under international control must be a tangible solution to the conflict, rather than a tactic used to delay a potential U.S. missile strike.
“This cannot be a process of avoidance,” Kerry told a House panel on Syria. “It has to be real. It is exceedingly difficult, I want everyone here to know, to fulfill those conditions. We’re waiting for that proposal. But we’re not waiting for long. President Obama will take a hard look at it. But it has to be swift. It has to be real. It has to be verifiable. It cannot be a delaying conflict. If the United Nations Security Council seeks to be the vehicle to make it happen, that cannot be allowed to simply become a debating society.”
Syria said earlier Tuesday that it has accepted Russia’s proposal in order to “derail the U.S. aggression.”
