The five permanent members of the often-divided U.N. Security Council
reached agreement Thursday on a resolution to eliminate Syria's
chemical weapons arsenal, British and U.S. diplomats said, and the
council was meeting to discuss it Thursday night.
The agreement by the permanent members, whose differences have
paralyzed council action on Syria, represents a major breakthrough in
addressing the 2 1/2-year conflict, which has killed more than 100,000
people.
Britain's U.N. ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, tweeted that Britain,
France, the U.S., Russia and China had agreed on a "binding and
enforceable draft ... resolution."
He said Britain will introduce the text to the 10 other members of the Security Council at a meeting Thursday night.
The U.S. and Russia had been at odds on how to enforce the
resolution, but Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S.
Ambassador Samantha Power confirmed that the last hurdles to agreement
had been overcome.
On Twitter, Power said the draft resolution establishes that Syria's
chemical weapons "is threat to international peace & security &
creates a new norm against the use of CW."
U.N. diplomats said it would be the first legally binding resolution
on Syria in the conflict if adopted, which now appears virtually
certain.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov met in hastily scheduled, closed-door talks Thursday
afternoon at the United Nations, and the agreement was announced soon
afterward.
The agreement came a day after Russia's deputy foreign minister said
negotiators had overcome a major hurdle and agreed that the resolution
would include a reference to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which allows
for military and nonmilitary actions to promote peace and security.
In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov offered to provide
troops to guard facilities where Syria's chemical weapons would be
destroyed.
The P-5 have been discussing for weeks what to include in a new
resolution requiring that Syria's chemical weapons be secured and
dismantled. The U.S. and Russia had been at odds on how to enforce the
resolution.
The flurry of diplomatic activity is in response to an Aug. 21 poison
gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians in a Damascus suburb, and
President Barack Obama's threat of U.S. strikes in retaliation.
After Kerry said Syrian President Bashar Assad could avert U.S.
military action by turning over "every single bit of his chemical
weapons" to international control within a week, Russia, Syria's most
important ally, agreed. Kerry and Lavrov signed an agreement in Geneva
on Sept. 13.
Assad's government quickly accepted the broad proposal, but there
have been tough negotiations on how its stockpile will be destroyed.