Envoys seek Syria U.N. resolution as France, Russia squabble

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Diplomats from five key nations kicked off talks on Tuesday on a Western-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons even as France and Russia clashed over Moscow's insistence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's is innocent in an August 21 poison gas attack on civilians.

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The U.S.-British-French draft is intended to support an American-Russian deal reached in Geneva last Saturday calling for Syria to account for its chemical weapons within a week and for the removal and destruction of the arsenal by mid-2014.

U.N. diplomats said it remained unclear when a vote on the resolution could take place. The current draft leaves the door open to the use of force in the event of non-compliance by Syria, though diplomats said Russia would almost certainly demand such provisions be deleted.

Meanwhile, Israel, Syria's neighbour that has been warily eyeing a civil war that has killed 100,000 people since 2011, shifted from its non-committal public stance and said it wanted to see Assad toppled.


Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/09/18/uk-syria-crisis-idUKBRE9860L420130918