Hours before President Obama is set to address the nation on Syria,
more developments on the diplomatic front:
Syria wants to join the chemical weapons ban treaty and is ready to give other countries and the United Nations access to its arsenal, Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said Tuesday.
"We are ready to state where the chemical weapons are, to halt production of chemical weapons and show these installations to representatives of Russia, other countries and the UN," Muallem said in a statement sent to Russia's Interfax news agency.
"We want to join the chemical weapons ban treaty. We will respect our commitments in relation to the treaty, including providing information on these weapons."
Meanwhile, Russia says it will propose a plan to Secretary of State John Kerry
later today:
Russia will send the United States details of a proposal to secure Syria's chemical weapons stockpile later Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said.
The details would come during the "course of the day," Kerry said, shortly after talking with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. But he insisted that any plan must contain "consequences" if it turns out to be a delaying tactic to avoid US military action.
Kerry also said
any plan must include a binding United Nations Security Council resolution.
12:05 PM PT: More details from Kerry:
Kerry said Tuesday that Russian suggestions that the U.N. endorsement come in the form of a non-binding statement from the rotating president of the Security Council would be unacceptable to the Obama administration. Kerry said the U.S. has to have "a full resolution from the Security Council in order to have confidence that this has the force that it has to have." He added that the resolution must have "consequences if games are played and somebody tries to undermine this."
According to NBC's Peter Alexander, the gap between the position Kerry articulated and the Russian position is that while the Obama administration wants to keep military action on the table if Syria fails to honor any commitments it makes, while Russia wants military action to be taken off the table as a condition for an agreement.