UN mulls timeframe for Syrian dirty weapons surrender

Deliberations over action against Syria continued at the United Nations on Tuesday, as Britain, France and the United States discussed elements of a draft Security Council resolution that would include a timeline for Syria to declare the full extent of its poison gas arsenal and to cede control of it to the United Nations.

France, one of the first proponents of military action, said the resolution should be legally binding and state clearly that Syria would face "serious consequences" if it failed to comply with the resolution's demands - diplomatic code for military force.

The Security Council initially called a closed door meeting asked for by Russia to discuss its proposal to place Syria's chemical weapons under international control, but the meeting was later cancelled at Russia's request.

French officials said their draft resolution was designed to make sure the Russian proposal would have teeth, by allowing military action if Assad is uncooperative.

Russia, however, has made clear it wanted to take the lead.

Lavrov told his French counterpart that Moscow would propose a UN draft declaration supporting its initiative to put Syria's chemical weapons under international control, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

US President Barak Obama said he would work with allies as well as veto-wielding Security Council members Russia and China to craft a UN resolution requiring Assad to give up chemical weapons and ultimately destroy them under international supervision.

"Meanwhile, I've ordered our military to maintain their current posture to keep the pressure on Assad and to be in a position to respond if diplomacy fails," Obama said.

Knotty problem
As difficult as it may be to reach a diplomatic solution to head off a United States strike on Syria, the details of enforcement are themselves complex and uncertain, people with experience monitoring weapons facilities said.

Spread far and wide across Syria, the chemical weapons complex of the fractured state includes factories, bunkers, storage depots and thousands of munitions, all of which would have to be inspected and secured under the diplomatic initiative.

Monitoring and securing unconventional weapons has proved challenging in places like Iraq, North Korea and Iran, even in peacetime. Syria is engaged in the third year of a bloody civil war, with many of the facilities squarely in battlefields.

''I'm very concerned about the fine print,'' Amy E Smithson, an expert on chemical weapons at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, told The New York Times. ''It's a gargantuan task for the inspectors to mothball production, install padlocks, and inventory the bulk agent as well as the munitions. Then a lot of it has to be destroyed - in a war zone.''

''What I'm saying is, 'Beware of this deal,' '' Dr Smithson added. ''It's deceptively attractive.''