Syria crisis: Russian-brokered deal, victory for Syria —Govt •US warns, says threat of force is real

Syria’s government hailed as a “victory” a Russian-brokered deal that has averted U.S. strikes, while President Barack Obama defended a chemical weapons pact that the rebels fear has bolstered their enemy in the civil war.
As President Bashar al-Assad’s warplanes and artillery hit rebel suburbs of the capital again on Sunday, minister Ali Haidar told Moscow’s RIA news agency: “These agreements ... are a victory for Syria, achieved thanks to our Russian friends.”
Though not close to Assad, Ali was the first Syrian official to react to Saturday’s deal struck in Geneva by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Bridging an angry East-West rift over Syria, they agreed to back a nine-month U.N. program to destroy Assad’s chemical arsenal.
Kerry responded to widespread skepticism about the feasibility of the plan by saying in Israel that it had “the full ability” to remove all Syria’s chemical weapons.
The agreement has effectively put off the threat of air strikes Obama made after poison gas killed hundreds of Syrian civilians on August 21, although he stressed that force remains an option if Assad reneges - and U.S. forces remain in position.
Obama embraced the disarmament proposal put forward last week by Russian President Vladimir Putin after his plan for U.S. military action hit resistance in Congress.
Lawmakers feared an open-ended new entanglement in the Middle East and were troubled by the presence of al Qaeda followers among Assad’s opponents.
In an interview with ABC television, Obama said criticism of his quick-changing tactics on Syria was about style rather than substance.
While welcoming Putin’s willingness to press his “client, the Assad regime” to disarm, he also chided the Kremlin leader for suggesting rebels carried out the gas attack.
Meanwhile, United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, on Sunday sent a strong warning to Syria, saying “the threat of force is real” if it does not carry out an internationally brokered agreement to hand over its chemical weapons.
Kerry issued the warning during a stop in Jerusalem, where he briefed jittery Israeli leaders on the new U.S.-Russian plan to rid neighboring Syria of its chemical weapons by the middle of next year.
In comments aimed at his hosts, Kerry said the deal also served as a “marker” for the international community as it deals with Iran’s suspect nuclear program.
“We cannot have hollow words in the conduct of international affairs,” Kerry said.
The U.S. has been formulating its response to an alleged chemical attack carried out by Syrian forces that killed hundreds of civilians last month.
“These are crimes against humanity and they cannot be tolerated,” Kerry warned.
In a deal meant to avert a threatened U.S. military strike, U.S. and Russian officials reached an ambitious agreement over the weekend calling for an inventory of Syria’s chemical weapons program within one week.
All components of Syria’s chemical weapons program are to be removed from the country or destroyed by mid-2014. The Syrian government has yet to issue an official statement on the agreement.
The deal was greeted with cautious optimism in Israel, where leaders expressed satisfaction that Syria, a bitter enemy, could be stripped of dangerous weapons but also pessimism about whether Syrian President Bashar Assad will comply.
Israel has repeatedly voiced concern that Assad, locked in a two-year-old civil war, may fire his chemical weapons at Israel in a bout of desperation or that the weapons could fall into the hands of Hezbollah or other hostile groups fighting in the Syrian civil war.
Perhaps more critically, the Israelis also fear that a tepid international response to Syria could encourage Iran to press forward with what is widely believed to be a nuclear weapons program.
Iran denies its nuclear program has a military purpose and says it is pursuing peaceful applications like cancer treatment and power generation.
Standing alongside Kerry, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the U.S.-Russia deal and stressed his belief that it would have deep repercussions on Iran, Syria’s close ally.
“The world needs to ensure that radical regimes don’t have weapons of mass destruction because as we have learned in Syria if rogue regimes have weapons of mass destruction they will use them,” Netanyahu said.