President Barack Obama has praised the new US-Russia agreement to force the Syrian regime to surrender its chemical weapons, declaring yesterday that it could be the foundation of a broader accord to “deal with the underlying terrible conflict”.
As the US and Russia pressed ahead with plans for an international effort to remove Syria’s chemical weapons within nine months, Mr Obama conceded that both sides do not yet have “an actual, verifiable deal” that will begin the process of destroying the Syrian stockpile.
But Mr Obama said a “remarkable” amount of progress had been made by the US and Russia in recent weeks – and that the international community was now in a “better position to stop the Assad regime using poison gas again”.