The US and Russia are “very pleased” wiht the progress made so far in destroying Syria’s chemical weapons stocks, said US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Mr Kerry, speaking at a press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime deserves credit for its swift compliance so far with the UN Security Council resolution calling for the elimination of the weapons. However, Mr Kerry stressed that Mr Assad still needs to continue to comply with UNdemands.
“Let me be crystal clear,” he said, “we’re very pleased with the pace of what has happened with respect to chemical weapons.”
He noted that yesterady, just over a week after the Security Council and the international chemical weapons watchdog acted, experts had started the process of destroying the stockpiles.
“I think that was a terrific example of global co-operation, of multilateral efforts to accomplish an accepted goal and they have moved with equal speed to get on the ground in Syrian and begin the operations,” he said.
“I think it is also credit to the Assad regime for complying rapidly as they are supposed to,” Kerry said.
Mr Kerry and Mr Lavrov met on the sidelines of an economic summit on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. Their meeting represented the first high-level talks between the two nations since they sealed a deal to secure and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons.
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