Regime: US-Russia deal ‘victory’

MOSCOW: The US-Russia deal aimed at removing Syrian chemical weapons averted war and is “a victory for Syria,” the Syrian minister of state for national reconciliation Ali Haidar said Sunday.
“On one hand, it will help the Syrians emerge from the crisis and on the other it has allowed for averting war against Syria...,” Haidar said in an interview with Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
It was the first Syrian reaction to the deal US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov clinched in Geneva on Saturday, under which Syria has a week to submit a list of its chemical weapons stocks and hand all of them over for destruction by mid-2014.
Haidar, speaking in Damascus, said the framework agreement would prepare the ground for peace talks between President Bashar Assad’s regime and the rebels.
The deal “provides international support for all the representatives of the Syrian people to sit down at one table and to resolve their internal problems at the next stage,” he said.
Haidar said that the deal “gives the opportunity to solve in the future all the problems of Syria, not only the problem of chemical weapons.”
“This deal is the result of Russian diplomacy and the Russian leadership. It’s a victory for Syria that was achieved thanks to our Russian friends,” he said.