WarSclerotic

Peres says he trusts Obama, Putin to reach Syria deal | The Times of Israel.

President believes that if Assad shows any dishonesty in chemical weapons agreement, US will strike his regime

Shimon Peres at the graduation ceremony Wednesday. (photo credit: President’s Residence)

Two days after casting doubt on a Russian-brokered deal that would see Damascus give up its chemical weapons, President Shimon Peres threw his weight behind the proposal, saying any agreement reached by the US and Russia would ensure the safe disposal of Syria’s WMDs.

“I know both [US] President [Barack] Obama and [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin, and I am convinced that if an agreement is reached it will be reliable, explicit and significant,” the president said at an Israeli Navy graduation ceremony.

Responding to Obama’s speech on Syria the night before in which the president said Washington was pursuing a diplomatic agreement which would ensure the destruction of Assad’s chemical weapons stockpiles, Peres said the US “is showing its moral and democratic weight and the strength of its military by attempting to bring an immediate end to the use of chemical weapons and to its ultimate destruction.”

“The murder of innocents, including women and children, is a crime which cannot be ignored,” Peres said, but noted that “it wasn’t the anger over the images of dead children that affected Assad but the military threat which forced him to respond to the initiative to remove and disarm his chemical weapons.”

On Monday, shortly after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pitched the proposal to have Assad hand his chemical weapons over to international actors for eradication, Peres cautioned against putting too much stock in the deal, saying “the Syrians are not trustworthy,” and that their acceptance of the Russian proposal meant very little.

Peres Wednesday again voiced skepticism of Assad’s trustworthiness, but assured the audience that he had faith in Putin and Obama’s ability to reach a suitable agreement which “must ensure that Assad has no chemical weapons.”

Earlier in the day the elder statesman said that if Assad proved to be honest, he would avoid American military action, but “if there’ll be a crack in Syria’s integrity I have no doubt that the US will act militarily.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also weighed in Wednesday on the issue of Syria’s alleged chemical weapons use, reiterating Obama’s remark the night before that Assad’s act was a “crime against humanity.”

“The world needs to ensure that whosoever uses WMDs pays a price for it,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “The message received in Syria will be well understood in Iran.”

Netanyahu added that Obama’s statement that Israel can defend itself “with overwhelming force” is correct, and is “the basis of our security.”

On Tuesday evening, Obama asked Congress to delay voting on using force against Syria in order to try and pursue a diplomatic solution to the crisis. The American president added Tuesday that should diplomacy fail the US military would “be ready to respond” against the Syrian government.

The Russian proposal, which Damascus agreed to on Tuesday, would put the country’s chemical weapons under international supervision. The regime is accused of using sarin gas to kill over a thousand people outside Damascus on August 21.

The Syrian civil war, which has raged for over two years, has claimed over 100,000 lives, according to the United Nations.

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