Syria To Give Weapons Details In A Month

Syrian President Bashar al Assad has said he will hand over information on his chemical weapons arsenal in a month.

Earlier, he agreed to sign up to an international agreement that would put his weapons under UN supervision - but said his decision had not been influenced by the threat of US military strikes.
His comments, made in an interview with Russian state TV, came as US President Barack Obama said he was "hopeful" that talks between America and Russia will lead to a workable plan to strip Syria of its deadly arsenal.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is in Geneva for high-stakes talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. The pair are due to hold a joint news conference at 6.30pm UK time.
The two-day meeting is to discuss Russia's four-point plan to place Syria's chemical stockpile under international control.
Mr Kerry arrived some hours ago before Mr Lavrov, who spoke about his hopes for the process - 3,500 miles away from Kazakhstan.
Sky's Robert Nisbet, in Geneva, said Mr Lavrov's delay is being seen as "embarrassing" for the US and shows Russia has the diplomatic upper hand in the talks.
In the interview with TV channel Rossiya-24, Mr Assad said: "Syria is placing its chemical weapons under international control because of Russia. The US threats did not influence the decision."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the plan faced "immense practical difficulties", although obstacles could be overcome "with sufficient international unity and goodwill".
He warned the initiative would require a "complete change of approach" by the Assad regime to its "past practices and deceptions".
The Russian plan was met with a "definitive rejection" by Salim Idriss, head of the rebel Supreme Military Council, while Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the Syrian regime had "won time for new massacres".
Meanwhile, Russia’s Moskva missile cruiser has reportedly passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and is now heading toward the eastern Mediterranean to assume command of the seven-strong Russian naval force there.
Another two vessels, the landing ship Nikolay Filchenkov and the guard ship Smetlivy, will join the naval unit later, Russia Today added.
The recent deployments are aimed at "complex monitoring" of the situation around Syria, military sources told the Interfax news agency.
The talks between Mr Kerry and Mr Lavrov follow Russian President Vladimir Putin's warning that a US attack on Syria without UN approval would result in more innocent victims and an escalation in violence in the Middle East.
Writing in the New York Times, he said there is "every reason to believe" it was rebel forces, not the Assad regime, who used sarin nerve gas in an attack that killed more than 1,000 people in Damascus on August 21.
He said a strike would "increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism" and claimed America would increasingly be seen "not as a model for democracy but as relying solely on brute force".
However, Dr Anna Neistat, an associate director of Human Rights Watch, said: "There is not a single mention in Mr Putin's article ... of the egregious crimes committed by the Syrian government ... (including) deliberate and indiscriminate killings of tens of thousands of civilians, executions, torture, enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests."