Avoiding conflict: Syria welcomes Russian chemical arms arsenal proposal

Syrian Foreign Minister stopped short of saying explicitly that President Assad accepted it.

MOSCOW: Syria welcomes a Russian proposal to place the nation's chemical weapons under international control, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Monday after talks in Moscow, praising the Kremlin for seeking to "prevent American aggression".

Moualem, who spoke to reporters through an interpreter after Russia expressed hope the proposal could avert military strikes against Syria, stopped short of saying explicitly that President Bashar al-Assad's government accepted it.

"I state that the Syrian Arab Republic welcomes the Russian initiative, motivated by the Syrian leadership's concern for the lives of our citizens and the security of our country, and also motivated by our confidence in the wisdom of the Russian leadership, which is attempting to prevent American aggression against our people," he said.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had called on the Syrian regime to hand over control of its chemical weapons arsenal to international supervision as a way of staving off the threat of military action.

He had said that such a plan would help “avoid military strikes” that are being considered by the United States and its allies. Lavrov said he had already passed the proposal to Muallem in Moscow and hoped for a “quick and positive answer” from Syria.