Kremlin: US trying to blackmail Russia on Syria deal

The Kremlin accused Washington of engaging in "blackmail" that could end a U.S.-Russian deal for Syrian President Bashar Assad to give up his chemical arsenal. "Our U.S. partners are beginning to blackmail us," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russia's state-owned Channel One. He contended Washington was threatening to sabotage all the work he and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry put into securing Syria's chemical arms unless Russia backs a U.N. Security Council resolution that allows the use of military action if the Assad regime doesn't comply with its disarmament obligations. U.S. negotiators "see in the Russian-U.S. agreement not a chance to save the planet from a significant quantity of chemical arms stockpiled in Syria, but an opportunity, denied them by Russia and China, to in fact carry through a use-of-force resolution aimed against the regime and sparing the opposition, to accuse Bashar Assad of everything and thus untie their hands of power scenarios," Lavrov said in Russian remarks whose translation was provided by the Los Angeles Times. "Our partners are now blinded by the ideological task to replace the regime because they said a couple of years back that President Assad has no place on this Earth and he must go," he said. A senior U.S. State Department official told CNN Washington would not "litigate the details of a potential resolution in public," but said the U.S. diplomatic team at the United Nations wanted to achieve a Security Council resolution "with the strongest possible enforcement mechanism." The official said Lavrov and Kerry spoke Sunday to reiterate "the importance of working together on implementation of their agreement in Geneva [Switzerland]." The two top diplomats laid out a framework for Syria's disarmament Sept. 14. The framework calls for Syria to submit a comprehensive declaration of its chemical arms within a week. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons -- which verifies adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention -- said Saturday it received Syria's declaration. The weapons convention prohibits of the use of chemical weapons and requires their destruction.The OPCW verification consists both of evaluation of declarations and on-site inspections. The U.S.-Russian framework then calls for OPCW inspectors to be in Syria by November to secure and destroy the arsenal, including chemical munitions, chemical agents and precursors, and missile delivery systems including ballistic missile warheads. Veteran weapons inspectors have said this process could take large numbers of people, including hundreds of inspectors and thousands of troops to provide security. But Lavrov said Sunday he saw no need for a large troop contingent. He said Moscow was prepared to stand guard "along the perimeter of areas where the experts will be working." "We are ready to assign our servicemen and military police on this mission," he told the TV network. "I do not think there is a need for deployment of large contingents. I believe that military observers would be enough."