<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareUserContentTopClass" style="line-height: 14px !important; text-align: left !important; ">Are we meeting at 6 or 7 tonight? There seems to be some confusion.</span></div><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareUserContentTopClass" style="line-height: 14px !important; text-align: left !important; "><div><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareUserContentTopClass" style="line-height: 14px !important; text-align: left !important; "><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareUserContentTopClass" style="line-height: 14px !important; text-align: left !important; "><br></span></div><img id="748e8600-7d4e-4ba8-bde1-f762cfaef0ad" height="18" width="122" apple-width="yes" apple-height="yes" src="cid:E6D2051F-18C3-4CC4-A69B-EC16F8F943A5@att.net"><br></span><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareSharedContentClass" style="position: relative !important; "><div class="original-url"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/kerry-says-syria-should-hand-over-all-chemical-arms.html?pagewanted=2&nl=afternoonupdate&emc=edit_au_20130909">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/kerry-says-syria-should-hand-over-all-chemical-arms.html?pagewanted=2&nl=afternoonupdate&emc=edit_au_20130909</a><br><br></div><div id="article" class="auto-hyphenated" style="-webkit-hyphens: auto; "><div class="page" style="font-size: 14px; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.4; text-align: justify; "><h1 class="title" style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 1.25em; text-align: start; -webkit-hyphens: manual; ">Kerry Floats a Deal on Arms, and Russia and Syria Seize It</h1><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">In Washington, Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee, expressed cautious support for Mr. Lavrov’s response. “Just the fact the Russians have moved tells me having this debate on military action is a having a positive outcome,” Mr. Rogers said in a telephone interview.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">Mr. Rogers said Congress should still vote to support a resolution backing United States military action as a means of increasing American leverage on the Russians.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">“So far, the Russian rhetoric does not match their activity on the ground,” said Mr. Rogers, alluding to the Russian supply of arms to the Syrian Army. “They’re going to have to prove they mean it.”</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">Mr. Lavrov went into more detail than Mr. Kerry’s suggestion — which Mr. Kerry’s own spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, described as more of a rhetorical exercise than a proposal.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">Mr. Lavrov said Russia was proposing that Syria join the international Convention on Chemical Weapons, which bars the manufacture, stockpiling and use of poison gas.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">Syria is one of seven nations that are not parties to the treaty, the others being Angola, Egypt, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea and South Sudan. “We are counting on a quick, and I hope, positive answer,” Mr. Lavrov said Monday evening as Mr. Kerry flew back to Washington to attend briefings on Capitol Hill intended to build support for a military response to Syria’s use of such weapons.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">For William Hague, the British foreign secretary, whose government has already ruled out participation in a military strike on Syria in deference to parliamentary opposition, his meeting with Mr. Kerry on Monday was nonetheless an opportunity to affirm British support for the United States, its most important ally.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">“Our government supports the objective of ensuring that there can be no impunity for the first use of chemical warfare in the 21st century,” Mr. Hague said in his joint appearance with Mr. Kerry. “As an international community, we must deter further attacks and hold those responsible for them accountable.”</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">Mr. Hague also said, “We admire the leadership of President Obama and Secretary Kerry himself, in making this case so powerfully to the world.”</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">Mr. Kerry said that Mr. Assad’s claims that he was not responsible for the chemical attack on Aug. 21 that provoked an international crisis over whether to launch punitive military strikes were not credible because Syria’s arsenal of poison gas is tightly controlled.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">Mr. Kerry said that three senior officials in the Syrian government have held control over the nation’s chemical weapons stocks and their use: Mr. Assad, his brother Maher and a senior general.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">Mr. Kerry said that “high level” members of the government gave the instructions to use chemical weapons in the Aug. 21 attack near Damascus “with the results going directly to President Assad.”</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">When asked if the White House would consider making public additional intelligence to counter Mr. Assad’s claims that he had nothing to do with the attack, like physical samples that documented the use of sarin gas produced by the Syrian government, Mr. Kerry said that he did not know what President Obama would decide.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">But he asserted that the Obama administration had already made available copious amounts of intelligence, and that the case against Mr. Assad was airtight.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">In a discussion on Sunday with Charlie Rose, the American television interviewer, Mr. Assad asserted that Mr. Kerry had lied about the intelligence, drawing an analogy to the presentation that Colin Powell made to the United Nations about Iraq in 2003. Mr. Kerry appeared unruffled by that allegation and recalled that his own experience in dealing with Mr. Assad as a senator had convinced him that the Syrian leader could not be trusted.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">In early 2009, Mr. Kerry met with Mr. Assad in Damascus to explore the possibility of improving relations between the United States and Syria. Mr. Kerry said that he confronted Mr. Assad about intelligence confirming that Syria had transferred Scud missiles to Hezbollah.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">Mr. Kerry said that Mr. Assad had “denied it to my face,” adding, “This is a man without credibility.”</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="font-size: 16px; ">Repeating a point he has stressed throughout his four days of discussions with European allies, Mr. Kerry said that if an attack was carried out, it would be limited in scope and duration, would not involve ground troops, and would not drag the United States and its allies into a prolonged conflict. He emphasized that it would be nothing like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the NATO bombing of Kosovo or the intervention in Libya.</p><nyt_author_id style="font-size: 16px; "><p style="font-style: italic; ">Steven Lee Myers reported from Moscow, Michael R. Gordon reported from London and Rick Gladstone from New York. Eric Schmitt and Michael D. Shear contributed reporting from Washington, and Scott Sayare from Paris.</p><div style="font-style: italic; "> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></nyt_author_id><nyt_correction_bottom style="font-size: 16px; "><div style="font-style: italic; "><p>This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:</p><p><strong>Correction: September 9, 2013</strong></p><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p>A previous version of this article misspelled the surname of a State Department spokeswoman. She is Jen Psaki, not Jen Paski.</p><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div></div></nyt_correction_bottom><nyt_update_bottom style="font-size: 16px; "></nyt_update_bottom><span style="font-size: 16px; "></span></div></div></span><span class="Apple-Mail-URLShareUserContentBottomClass" style="line-height: 14px !important; text-align: left !important; "></span></body></html>