France to Float Security Council Resolution on Syria under Chapter 7
France said Tuesday it would submit a resolution to the U.N. Security Council calling on Syria to put its chemical weapons beyond use or face military action.
The resolution, to be presented in New York later in the day, will also demand that the individuals responsible for an August 21 chemical attack on Damascus suburbs be put on trial at the International Criminal Court, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a press conference.
Fabius said the resolution would demand full disclosure by President Bashar Assad's regime of the scale of its weapons program, and that the arsenal be placed immediately under international control as a first step towards its being dismantled.
The minister said the resolution would be presented under chapter seven of the U.N. charter, which provides a basis for military action.
"It will provide for extremely serious consequences in the event of Syria violating its obligations," Fabius said.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Tuesday that international pressure had worked after a plan emerged to head off punitive U.S. air strikes on Syria by destroying the regime's chemical weapons.
"It's an opening. It must be seized upon and Bashar Assad's regime must formally respond and firmly engage to it, and it must be implemented quickly," Le Drian said.
"The international pressure worked," he said. "If there had not been pressure from France and the United States to... oppose the use of weapons of mass destruction, there would not have been this reaction.
"If there had not been such determination, Russia would not have budged," Le Drian said. "We are absolutely not easing up on the pressure."
The French U.N. move came a day after Russia presented a proposal for Syria to cede control of its chemical weapons in order to avoid threatened military strikes by the United States and France.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow is currently in talks with Damascus to develop a "concrete plan" for the Syrian regime to hand over its chemical weapons arsenal.
"We (Russia) are currently working on preparing a workable, precise and concrete plan and for this there are literally right now, in these minutes, contacts with the Syrian side," Lavrov said at a news conference with his Libyan counterpart.
"And we expect to present this plan soon and we will be ready to work on it with the U.N. secretary general, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, with the participation of members of the U.N. Security Council," he added.
Lavrov on Monday proposed for the Syrian regime to cede control of its chemical arms and subsequently have them destroyed, having seized a remark by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that such a move, done "without delay" could avert a military strike.
Source: Agence France Presse, Associated Press
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