Kerry Says Syria Should Hand Over All Chemical Arms

Kerry Says Syria Should Hand Over All Chemical Arms

By MICHAEL R. GORDON 

The American secretary of state said Monday that officials in Damascus must allow a full accounting of their poison gas stocks.

• French Leader Seen as Lackey After Bold Step on Syria

  
  

  

  Pool photo by Susan Walsh

  Secretary of State John Kerry, right, and Foreign Minister William Hague of Britain following a news conference at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London on Monday.

  By MICHAEL R. GORDON

  Published: September 9, 2013

  LONDON — Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that if President Bashar al-Assad wants to avert an attack on Syria, he should hand over all of his chemical weapons within one week.

  Multimedia

  Video

  Videos on the Syrian Conflict

  
  
  Asked if there were steps the Syrian president could take to avert an American-led attack, Mr. Kerry said: “Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting.”
  Mr. Kerry’s remarks, which were made at a joint news conference with William Hague, the British foreign secretary, were the latest in a war of words between the Syrian leader and the Obama administration
  Mr. Kerry’s suggestion was more of a debating point than a serious ultimatum. He added that he did not believe Mr. Assad would take such action and expressed doubt whether it was even feasible as a civil war rages in Syria. “But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done,” Mr. Kerry said.
  “Secretary Kerry was making a rhetorical argument about the impossibility and unlikelihood of Assad turning over chemical weapons he has denied he used,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokewoman, said in an e-mail to reporters after Mr. Kerry’s comments. “His point was that this brutal dictator with a history of playing fast and loose with the facts cannot be trusted to turn over chemical weapons, otherwise he would have done so long ago. That’s why the world faces this moment.”
  Obama administration officials have discussed the idea of presenting Mr. Assad with an ultimatum. But officials are wary of giving the Syrian leader an opportunity to play for time and carrying out inspections to make sure the Syrian government has not retained hidden stocks of poison gas as fighting rages appeared to be a near impossibility.
  M. Kerry said that Mr. Assad’s claims that he was not responsible for the chemical attack on August 21 which provoked an international crisis over whether to launch punitive military strikes were not credible because Syria’s arsenal of poison gas is tightly controlled.
  Mr. Kerry said that three senior officials in the Syrian government have had control over the nation’s chemical weapons stocks and their use: Mr. Assad, his brother Maher and a senior general.
  Mr. Kerry said that “high-level” members of the regime gave the instructions to use chemical weapons in the August 21 chemical weapons attack near Damascus “with the results going directly to president Assad.”
  When asked if the White House would consider making public additional intelligence to counter Mr. Assad’s claims that he had nothing to do with the attack, such as physical samples that documented the use of sarin gas produced by the Syrian government, Mr. Kerry said that he did not know what President Obama would decide.
  But he asserted that the Obama administration had already made available copious amounts of intelligence and the case against Mr. Assad was airtight.
  In a discussion on Sunday with Charlie Rose, an American television interviewer, Mr. Assad asserted that Mr. Kerry had lied about the intelligence, drawing an analogy to the presentation that Colin Powell had made to the United Nations about Iraq. Mr. Kerry appeared unruffled by that allegation and recalled that his own experience in dealing with Mr. Assad as a senator had convinced him that the Syrian leader could not be trusted.
  In early 2009, Mr. Kerry met with Mr. Assad in Damascus to explore the possibility of improving relations between the United States and Syria. Mr. Kerry said that he confronted Mr. Assad about intelligence the United States had confirmed that Syria had transferred Scud missiles to Hezbollah.
  Mr. Kerry said that Mr. Assad had “denied it to my face,” adding “this is a man without credibility.”
  Repeating a point he has stressed throughout his four days of discussions with European allies, Mr. Kerry said that if an attack were carried out, it would be limited in scope and duration, would not involve ground troops and would not drag the United States and its allies into a prolonged conflict. He emphasized that it would be nothing like the ways in Iraq and Afghanistan, the NATO bombing of Kosovo or the intervention in Libya.
  Mr. Kerry’s spoke at a joint news conference with Mr. Hague, the British foreign secretary. The meeting came less than two weeks after the British Parliament rejected a role for British forces in any American-led attack.
  That decision has allowed France to displace Britain as the United States principal ally if a military strike is carried out and has prompted commentators to question the durability of the “special relationship” between London and Washington.
  Mr. Kerry and Mr. Hague sought to counter the notion that the parliamentary vote, which stunned Obama administration officials and was quickly followed by Mr. Obama’s decision to delay a potential strike against the Syrian government and seek Congressional approval, had dealt a serious blow to American-British relations.
  Citing common views on trade and climate change, Mr. Kerry stressed that American and British relations were about “values.” At one point, Mr. Kerry referred to the number of Americans who worked for British companies as a sign that ties between the two countries were durable — a point that an American official would have not needed to make just a few weeks ago.
  Mr. Hague made similar comments about the deep bonds between the two countries.
  One purpose of Mr. Kerry’s trip has been to solicit foreign support for an American-led attack, which might be used to try to sway Congress. Mr. Kerry’s London visit was his last stop and he is flying back to Washington where he will immediately head to Capitol Hill to assist the administration’s push for Congressional backing.
  Mr. Kerry is scheduled to join other senior administration at a Monday briefing for lawmakers.
  Having been rebuffed by his own Parliament, however, Mr. Hague was not able to provide much more than moral support.
  Asked what steps Britain might take on Syria now that Parliament has blocked military action, Mr. Hague suggested that the British government might increase the amount of nonlethal assistance it provides to the Syrian opposition, such as protective equipment against chemical weapons attacks. He also said that Britain would be actively diplomatically and would press to see that humanitarian aid got through to the Syrians who need it.
  
  This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
  Correction: September 9, 2013
  COPY http://www.nytimes.com