Syria must disclose the complete details of its chemical weapons and related facilities by next Saturday, a critical test of whether President Bashar al-Assad will comply with the U.S.-Russian accord on finding, securing and eliminating his toxic armaments.
The plan agreed upon yesterday by Russia and the U.S. is to follow a “tightly fixed schedule” that envisions international monitors taking control of Syria’s chemical weapons until they can be destroyed or removed from the country by mid-2014, a timetable that will be difficult to meet even if Assad’s regime cooperates.
There are gaps in what officially is called a “framework” that add to the uncertainties about whether it will deliver as promised by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. If Assad fails to comply, U.S. President Barack Obama will again confront the issue of whether to use U.S. military force.
“It’s a wait-and-see game at this point,’ said Faiza Patel, a former official at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international body that oversees the Chemical Weapons Convention banning such arms.
‘‘We’ll see each step of the way how cooperative the Syrians are, and how much political will there is in the international community to actually support this effort,” Patel, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, said in a phone interview.
