Washington is not prepared to trust the word of the Syrian regime alone that it will rid itself of chemical weapons, US secretary of state John Kerry said Thursday.
“The words of the Syrian regime in our judgement are simply not enough, which is why we’ve come here in order to work with the Russians,” Mr Kerry told reporters in Geneva ahead of crunch talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on the thorny issue of Syria’s chemical weapons.
Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad confirmed for the first time Thursday that Syria plans to give up its chemical weapons and demanded that the US drop threats of military action against his regime in return.
“When we see that the United States truly desires stability in our region and stops threatening and seeking to invade, as well as stops arms supplies to terrorists then we can believe that we can follow through with the necessary processes,” Mr Assad said in an interview on Russian television. Washington should dispense with the “politics of threats”, he warned.
He also signalled that he was ready to start the disarmament process.