International
The United States was "very pleased" with progress made in destroying Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, Secretary of State John Kerry said after talks with his Russian counterpart Monday. Their meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Bali, Indonesia, represented the first high-level talks between the two countries since they reached a deal in September to destroy Syria's chemical weapons and avoid a military strike against the country.
Speaking at a press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Kerry said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime deserved "credit" for its compliance with a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for destruction of the weapons.
Kerry said it was "extremely significant" that the first weapons were destroyed Sunday, just a few weeks after the resolution passed. "It is a good beginning, and we should welcome a good beginning," Kerry said.
"I think it's a credit to the Assad regime, frankly," he said, then added that Syria needed to continue complying with international demands.
On Sunday the U.N. began the long process of securing and destroying Syria's estimated 1,000-ton stockpile of chemical weapons. Syrian personnel, under the supervision of international disarmament inspectors, are working under a Nov. 1 deadline set by the U.N. to destroy the Assad government's capability to produce and use the weapons.
The operation was suggested by Russia as a viable alternative to a U.S.-led proposal to launch limited, punitive strikes against the Assad regime for its alleged role in Aug. 21 chemical attacks near Damascus that the U.S. said killed more than 1,400 civilians, including hundreds of children.
The United States and its allies blamed the incident on Assad's forces, which have been embroiled in a bloody civil war with opposition fighters for more than two years.
More than 100,000 people have died in the war, according to the U.N., and 2 million Syrian refugees have scattered to neighboring countries in one of the worst humanitarian crises of recent years.
After Lakhdar Brahimi, U.N. peace envoy to Syria, said it didn’t appear certain that peace talks would take place in November, the United States and Russia agreed Monday to press the U.N. to set a date for a Syria peace conference that month.
"We will urge a date to be set as soon as possible," Kerry said.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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Beneath concrete and earthen bunkers in Kentucky and Colorado sit 6.2 million pounds of debilitating and deadly chemical weapons.
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