Russia Urges Syria to Put Chemical Weapons Under International Control

Trying to de-escalate

Russia has urged Syria to put its chemical weapons under international control, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters Monday.

"We have passed our offer to (Syrian Foreign Minister Walid) Al-Muallem and hope to receive [a] fast and positive answer," Sergey Lavrov said,according to RT.com, the Russian news agency, and the Associated Press.

Comments

[Calvin Coolidge]

We will not allow peace to be extracted from the jaws of war! A clear, unmistakable message must be sent!

"Secretary of State John Kerry said earlier in the day that Syrian leader Bashar Assad could avoid an American attack by surrendering his chemical weapons within a week. But he said Assad would never agree to it, and a spokeswoman later said Kerry was speaking rhetorically.

"His point was that this brutal dictator with a history of playing fast and loose with the facts cannot be trusted to turn over chemical weapons, otherwise he would have done so long ago," the spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said in a statement. "That's why the world faces this moment."

The senior administration official told NBC News that Russia was only trying to protect the Assad regime and that the United States would make decisions about a military response "on our own timeline, period."