The United States and Russia have agreed on a plan to secure Syria’s chemical weapons.
This was disclosed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday after days of talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
According to the plan, Syria must provide details of its chemical weapons within one week and weapons inspectors must be on the ground in Syria by November.
The goal is for Syria’s chemical weapons to be destroyed or removed by mid-2014, Kerry said.
The proposed plan comes even as a secretive Syrian military unit is reportedly moving its stockpile of chemical weapons to as many as 50 sites in order to further complicate American efforts to track them.
Officials said that the shifting of the arsenal of poison gases and munitions can complicate a possible US military strike on Syria over the Damascus regime”s alleged use of chemical weapons.
According to News24, the officials, on conditions of anonymity, did not confirm if the stocks have been shifted to 50 sites but said that the Syrian military is indeed dispersing all of their military equipment and material in anticipation of a possible attack.
The official further said that the US government does not precisely know the location of all of Syria’s chemical stocks.
The Syrian military”s ‘Unit 450’ is believed to be moving the stocks around for months and as recently as last week, according to officials and lawmakers.
The deadly weapons, traditionally kept at several sites in western Syria, began being dispersed to nearly two dozen major sites around a year ago.
However, both the US and Israeli intelligence agencies still believe they know where most of the weapons are situated, but one official said that they know a lot less about the weapons’ location than they did six months ago.
According to the report, President Bashar Assad confirmed for the first time that Syria plans to give up its chemical weapons as the US urged him and his Russian allies to quickly make good on his promise. (ANI)