ISTANBUL – The head of the opposition Syrian Supreme Military Council said on Saturday a US-Russian agreement to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons was a blow to the two-and-a-half-year uprising to remove President Bashar Al-Assad from power. General Selim Idris said the deal would allow Assad to escape being held accountable for killing hundreds of civilians in a poison gas attack on Damascus on Aug. 21. Assad has denied responsibility for the attack. US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the agreement on removing Syria's chemical weapons on Saturday after nearly three days of talks in Geneva. Idris said Assad's forces had started moving some of their chemical weapons to Lebanon and Iraq in the last few days to evade a possible UN inspection. The new accord gives Syria a week to provide details of its chemical weapons stockpiles, and says Syria must give international inspectors unfettered access to them with the goal of removing them by the middle of next year. But US President Barack Obama welcomed the deal. In a statement, Obama said that if the Assad regime does not live up to the deal Washington reached with Syria's ally Russia, “the United States remains prepared to act.” Obama said the accord was made possible ‘in part' by what he called his credible threat to use force against Syria as punishment for its alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians last month. However, the accord leaves major questions unanswered, including how feasible such a major disarmament can be in the midst of civil war and at what point Washington might yet make good on a continued threat to attack if it thinks Assad is reneging. The accord, was as much about US-Russian ties as it was about Syria. The conflict has chilled relations to levels recalling the Cold War. – Agencies
