MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian-US deal on Syria, reached on Saturday in Geneva is a “major achievement,” but leaves many questions unanswered, a senior Russian lawmaker said.
After weeks of intense diplomacy and almost three days of talks in Geneva between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his US counterpart John Kerry, the United States and Russia reached a landmark deal Saturday that will see all chemical weapons in war-torn Syria brought under international control and destroyed by mid-2014.
“It’s a major achievement, because it gives a chance to thwart US plans of a military strike on Syria,” said Alexei Pushkov, who heads the international affairs committee of the Russian parliament’s lower house.
However, the lawmaker said, the deal stipulates “only general principles and the general timeline of bringing Syrian [chemical] weapons under international control and their subsequent destruction.”
Pushkov said the deal was only “a step towards” a political solution to the conflict, and its implementation might stall if Moscow and Washington disagree on several key issues.
He said there is a chance that the sides disagree in their interpretations of the document’s provisions, “just the way it happened on numerous occasions in the past.”
According to Pushkov, another important issue is “will the US treat this Syria chemical disarmament deal with Russia as a basis for further cooperation, or will Moscow and Washington once again disagree in their views of the issue, and Washington will pursue its previous goal – to topple the [Bashar] Assad’s government by all means.”
