10.09 Obama Calls Russian Proposal for Syria
MOSCOW, September 10 (RIA Novosti) US President Barack Obama has said that a Russian initiative to put Syrian chemical arms under international supervision is potentially positive but cautioned that it could be an attempt to stall US military action against Syria.
"This represents a potentially positive development," Obama said in an interview with NBC on Monday, adding that it should be taken with a grain of salt initially.
Obama, who is seeking to persuade the US lawmakers to endorse White House plans for a limited military strike on Syria, pledged to take the Russian proposal seriously and said he had asked US State Secretary John Kerry to explore together with the Russian side the possibility of a deal with Bashar Assads regime.
In another of six television interviews he gave on Monday, Obama told PBS that he welcomed any genuine effort to find a diplomatic solution for the Syrian crisis.
"If we can exhaust these diplomatic efforts and come up with a formula that gives the international community a verifiable, enforceable mechanism to deal with these chemical weapons in Syria, then I'm all for it," he said.
Obama warned, however, against attempts to derail the US push to apply pressure on the Syrian regime, which has been accused of an alleged August 21 chemical weapons attack on rebels that reportedly killed over 1,400 people.
We don't want just a stalling or delaying tactic to put off the pressure [on Syria], he said.
