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| Daily News Brief September 27, 2013 |
Top of the Agenda: Security Council Plans Vote on Syria's Chemical Arms
After
weeks of gridlock, the United States and Russia agreed on a draft
resolution to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons, and a UN Security
Council vote on the measure is expected as soon as Friday evening (Reuters).
Experts from the world's chemical weapons watchdog in The Hague
appealed for funding to finance the operation in Syria, and expect to begin inspection in the war-torn country on Tuesday (BBC). U.S. and Russian officials said most of Syria's nerve agent stockpiles are "unweaponized" liquid precursors that can be eliminated relatively quickly and easily (WaPo).
Analysis
"But
if Syria cheats, the president will find himself constrained from
acting. Under the terms of the resolution, a committee of diplomats and
functionaries from the United Nations and the Organization on the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will determine whether Syria has violated the terms of the agreement," Colum Lynch writes in Foreign Policy.
"Bashar's objectives to consolidate alliances and weaken the counter alliance and buying time
have all been thus far satisfied. The one year disarmament period that
Bashar suggested will be needed is no speculation at all; it is well
calculated period during which time to weaken the opposition and its
supporters and to deny the U.S. and her allies any legitimate pretext to
attack Syria," Zaher Mahruqi writes for Iran's Press TV.
"There are huge challenges ahead, including devising a plan to get rid of the chemical weapons and trying to reach a broader deal that could end the fighting and put a transitional government in place. That was made even harder on Wednesday
when some Syrian rebel groups abandoned their Western-backed political
leaders in exile and cast their lot with an affiliate of Al Qaeda,"
writes the New York Times in an editorial.
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