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French President Francois Hollande met the foreign ministers of the United States and Britain on Monday to discuss a UN resolution on Syria, hours before the release of a key UN Report investigating last month’s chemical attack.
France is pushing for a tough resolution to enshrine last week’s agreement between the US and Russia on the dismantling of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.
The deal has averted the threat of US and French missile strikes against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime — at least for now.
Washington and Paris have said they are keeping the military option on the table, but have also said they prefer a diplomatic solution.
US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Paris from Israel, where he promoted the deal he negotiated with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov as a chance to “strip all of the chemical weapons from Syria.” Kerry and his French and British counterparts, Laurent Fabius and William Hague, were to give a press conference on Monday.
The deal announced on Saturday in Geneva has been heralded as a success for Russian diplomacy.
The US and Russia agreed that Syria must declare its stock of chemical weapons by the end of this week, and give up that arsenal by mid-2014. The deal would be enforced by a UN resolution.
France, which was excluded from the Geneva talks, has reacted cautiously to the agreement.
In a television interview on Sunday, Hollande, who has been more hawkish on Syria than US President Barack Obama, described the agreement as “an important stage” but “not the arrival point.”
“We must make sure there is the possibility of punitive action if the agreement is not applied,” he said.
France is hoping that a UN report into the August 21 chemical attack, due to be released later Monday in New York, will boost the case for a tough UN resolution.
The US and its allies have already blamed the attack on al-Assad’s forces. The Syrian leader and Russia have blamed the rebels.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said last week he expected the report compiled by UN investigators to produce “overwhelming” evidence that chemical weapons were used.
Ban is to first brief the UN Security Council later Monday, and then the General Assembly on the findings of the chemical weapons inspectors.
Evidence of the type of device used to launch the poisonous gas that Washington says killed more than 1,400 people could give clues as to who carried it out.
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