U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that “the U.N. Security Council must be prepared to act next week,” as he says it is essentially confirmed that Syria’s government is responsible for last month’s chemical attacks.
The U.N. General Assembly will convene next week and Kerry says, “The complete removal of Syria’s chemical weapons is possible here, through peaceful means.” He also added, “Time is short. Let’s not spend time debating what we already know. This fight about Syria’s chemical weapons is not a game, it’s real.”
The report from U.N. chemical weapons inspectors, who went to Syria to investigate the attack, do not place sole blame on either the Syrian government or on the rebels, who al-Assad and Syrian officials are saying are truly responsible. Kerry, however, sees the details in the report as support for the case against al-Assad. “Anybody who reads the facts and puts the dots together — which is easy to do and they made it easy to do — understands what those facts mean,” he said.
Kerry also points out that it would probably have been close to impossible for anyone to get a hold of the chemical weapons if they were not part of the government. “There’s not a shred of evidence that the opposition does (have that capability),” he said.
However, Russia, a major ally of Syria, continues to insist that the Syrian government was not responsible, and calls the U.N. report, “distorted.”
