Putin: We are on right track about Syria deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin said world powers are ‘on the right track’ with a plan to place Syria’s chemical weapons under international supervision. On September 14, Russia and the United States agreed on a deal under which Syria must account for its chemical weapons stockpiles within a week and see them eliminated by the middle of 2014. Syria has agreed to the deal, press tv reported. "There is every reason to believe we are on the right track," Putin said at an investment conference on Wednesday. The Russian president also stated that the global powers could avert a military intervention Syria if they work together. "I believe that if we continue to act in such a coordinated way, it will not be necessary to use force and increase the number of people wounded and killed in the long-suffering land of Syria," Putin said. Russia has blocked a number of anti-Syria western initiatives in the UN Security Council and blamed the foreign-backed militants operating in Syria for a deadly chemical attack near Damascus on August 21. On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on all parties involved in the Syrian crisis to take part in the Geneva-2 conference without any preconditions. "We’d like to convene the Geneva-2 conference as soon as possible to allow Syrians themselves to agree on measures to implement the Geneva communiqué," Lavrov said at a press conference following a meeting with his Indian counterpart Salman Khurshid. On May 7, Russia and the US agreed to convene an international conference on Syria, which will serve as a follow-up to an earlier Geneva meeting held in June 2012. However, the exact date of the event keeps slipping as Syria’s foreign-backed opposition coalition remains divided over taking part in the second round of the talks. They have repeatedly refused to take part in the conference unless Syrian President Bashar al-Assad steps down. The Syrian government has already announced that it is ready to take part in the peace conference without any preconditions in an effort to help end over two years of deadly turmoil in the country.