Syria will top agenda at annual UNGA

The Syrian crisis is to top the agenda of the annual United Nations General Assembly which will witness several meetings aimed at discussing the issue on its sidelines. World leaders are gathering in New York to make speeches dominated by Syria at the UNGA, Al-Manar reported. The talks are now focusing on how to destroy the chemical weapons of the Syrian government, with Russia-US wrangling over a resolution to enforce the destruction cast a shadow on the assembly. Western diplomats said Moscow's refusal to support a Security Council resolution giving legal backing to Syria's disarmament had held up a plan to put the crisis-torn country's chemical arms under international control. A meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday could prove decisive for the plan they agreed earlier this month to head off a US military strike. Kerry is also to meet Syrian opposition leaders on Tuesday. Russia has accused the United States and its allies of using "blackmail" over the resolution and of seeking approval for military force in Syria. Russia and the United States agreed the disarmament plan on September 14 after an alleged August 21 chemical weapon attack in Damascus in which hundreds died. The United States has accused Syrian government of carrying out the attack. But the Syrian government, backed by Russia, insists the attack was staged by foreign-backed militants. Moscow and Washington have sent a blueprint of what would be one of the biggest disarmament missions ever staged to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), diplomats said. "The details of how to destroy the weapons are basically agreed, but everything is held up by the enforcement -- and that is between Russia and America at the Security Council," a UN diplomat told AFP.