(CNN) -- America's top diplomat pressed hard
Thursday for international action in Syria in the wake of last month's
chemical weapons attack, saying "the U.N. Security Council must be
prepared to act next week" given a report he says shows Syria's
government is culpable.
Speaking ahead of next
week's U.N. General Assembly, in which world leaders and diplomats
convene in New York, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said "the
complete removal of Syria's chemical weapons is possible here, through
peaceful means." But urgency is needed, he added, saying, "Time is
short. Let's not spend time debating what we already know."
"This fight about Syria's chemical weapons is not a game," Kerry told reporters. "It's real."
Washington has been
leading the charge for action -- including possible military
intervention -- in Syria since an August 21 chemical weapons attack
outside Damascus that U.S. officials estimate killed about 1,400 people.
Kerry and others have
said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government was behind the
attack; al-Assad and fellow Syrian officials have adamantly denied that
claim and blamed rebels. A report from U.N. chemical weapons inspectors
who went to Syria had the potential to offer a fact-based assessment
with the potential to bridge the divide.
That report came out this
week. While, per its directive, it did not cast blame on any one side,
Kerry said that it offered "crucial details" that make the case
implicating al-Assad "only ... more compelling."
"Anybody who reads the
facts and puts the dots together -- which is easy to do and they made it
easy to do -- understands what those facts mean," Kerry said.
As an example, Kerry said
the U.N. report notes that only the Syrian government forces are
capable of using the type of chemical weapon-laden munitions and rockets
the way were used. Kerry said it's unrealistic to think anyone but they
had access to such weapons as well as the means to deliver them.
"There's not a shred of evidence that the opposition does (have that capability)," he added.
But Syria, and its longtime ally Russia, continue to offer a starkly different viewpoint.
Moscow has described the
U.N. report as "distorted," with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov
telling Russia Today it was built on insufficient information.
In the same interview,
Ryabkov said Syria has provided evidence -- which Russia is studying --
that implicates rebels carried out the attack.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin on Thursday stressed that opposition fighters may have
done so in order to provoke an international response. Material has been
taken from the Syrian army, he added.
Yet, without mentioning
any country or group in particular, Kerry said Thursday that such
theories distracted from a critical need for the international community
to act quickly and decisively in Syria.
"We really don't have time today," the secretary of state said, "to pretend that anyone can have their own set of facts."
Minister: Russia could help move, destroy weapons
The rhetoric out of
Moscow might seem sharply opposed to that out of Washington. But Russia
was the one to offer a proposal that U.S. President Barack Obama and
others have embraced -- to eliminate the Syrian government's chemical
weapons stockpile -- and it signaled its intent Thursday to help with
that plan.
Russian Defense Minister
Sergei Shoigu said his country is willing to transport and destroy
Syrian chemical weapons, although only as part of an international
coalition.
In fact, Russia and the
United States agreed earlier this month on the framework for such a
plan, and Syria has said its willing to give up its chemical weapons.
But reaching a final
deal at the United Nations will be tough. U.S. and French officials want
to include the threat of military action in the event Syria doesn't
comply. But Russian officials don't want any wording that could trigger
the use of force, a point Putin reiterated at the same Valdai forum --
an annual meeting in which experts, pundits and diplomatic personnel
gather for discussions with senior Russian officials -- that Shoigu
attended.
"The threat of using
force is far from being the way to solve all international problems,"
Putin said Thursday, adding the U.S. Congress should be going through
the U.N. Security Council rather than debating the use of force against
Syria.
The Russian leader questioned merits of Western military intervention, saying it hasn't worked elsewhere in places like Libya.
"Good motives, good
intentions, led to these military interventions in Libya," Putin said.
"But did it bring about democracy? The country has been divided up into
countries like tribes fighting each other."
And what if al-Assad
doesn't comply with any deal, as rebel leaders believe he will? Putin
brushed off a question Thursday as to what Russia would do if that
proves true.
"We don't have any
reason to believe they won't implement what they have said. If they
don't, we will reconsider the question," he said.
Syrian leader says he welcomes U.N. inspectors' return
Meanwhile, Syria's president says he'll
welcome the return of U.N. investigators to follow up on more allegations of chemical weapons use in his country.
"We've been asking them
to come back to Syria to continue their investigations," al-Assad told
Fox News in an interview broadcast Wednesday.
Al-Assad said he hadn't
had time yet to analyze the U.N. investigators' findings, but he
stressed that they have more work to do.
"They haven't finished
it yet," he said, adding that it's clear that rebels, not his
government, were behind chemical weapons attacks.
Ake Sellstrom, the head
of the inspection team that visited Syria after the August 21 attack,
told CNN that another visit could take place as early as next week.
U.S. surveillance
satellites indicate Syria's government has moved its chemical weapons in
recent days, two Obama administration officials -- each with a
different agency -- say.
One of the officials
said it "is unclear (if) they are moving them to consolidate the
stockpile and then declare it, or are they moving it around to conceal
it." Both officials asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitive
nature of the information.
As world leaders
continued to debate what to do about such weapons, violence continued to
rage inside the Middle Eastern nation much as it has, on a daily basis,
for well over two years.
The U.N. estimates more
than 100,000 people have died since March 2011, a period in which harsh
government crackdowns against protesters devolved into an all-out civil
war. Another 2 million fled their homeland, while more than 4.25 million
have been displaced within Syria, also according to the United Nations.
The president of another
of Syria's long-time allies, Iran, offered Thursday to broker efforts
to bring peace to the war-torn nation. In a
Washington Post op-ed,
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced his "government's readiness
to facilitate dialogue between the Syrian government and the
opposition."
There was no immediate
reaction to Rouhani's offer from any key players in the struggle. Yet
given the military support that Iran has reportedly given al-Assad
throughout this ordeal, it seems unlikely the rebels would consider any
Iranian official a truly independent broker.
Amidst all this talk,
the bloodshed continues. The opposition Local Coordination Committees of
Syria reported at least 82 dead across the country Thursday, including
15 killed by shelling from Syrian warplanes in the Idlib province town
of Sinjar.
But the violence didn't just pit opposition fighters against government forces.
For a second straight
day, Free Syrian Army rebels clashed with fighters from the al
Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Syria near the northern town of
Azaz, not far from the Turkish border.
Abu Thabat, a Free
Syrian Army official, said his group has received reinforcements from
two other battalions in the fight in what's been rebel-controlled
territory. They've managed to push the al Qaeda-linked fighters back
some, though the battle continues.
"We are regrouping," Thabat said. "We will call for more reinforcements and will probably attack tonight."
A short time later,
though, a scanned letter signed by an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
member, a captain in the Free Syria Army and two witnesses appeared to
indicate that these hostilities were over -- at least for now.
According to the letter
posted on the Facebook page for a rebel-held border crossing community,
the parties have agreed to an immediate cease-fire, the prompt return of
prisoners and seized property and the formation of a committee to look
at resolving the two sides' dispute long-term.
