US says Syria biggest chemical weapons-removal deal ever.

 

The United States said Sunday that a deal it had reached with Russia on Syria is the most far-reaching chemical weapons-removal scheme ever. US Secretary of State John Kerry, however, warned that the military option remains on the table if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fails to comply.

 

"Now, this will only be as effective as its implementation will be and (US) President (Barack) Obama has made it clear that, to accomplish that, the threat of military force remains," Kerry added in Jerusalem.

 

"I want people to understand the key elements of what we agreed to in Geneva. It is a framework, not a final agreement," he said.

 

"It is a framework that must be put into effect by the United Nations. ... it has the full ability to be able to ... strip all of the chemical weapons from Syria," Kerry told a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

 

The pact was announced Saturday by Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva after three days of talks and averts the threat of military action - for now.

 

Washington and Moscow have agreed that Syria must declare its stock of chemical weapons within a week and give up that arsenal by mid-2014. Obama Sunday defended the deal and said his policy on Syria was working.

 

"My entire goal throughout this exercise is to make sure what happened on August 21 does not happen again," he told ABC in an interview.

 

Obama was referring to a chemical weapons attack near Damascus, which Washington says killed more than 1,400 civilians. Al-Assad's regime has denied responsibility.

 

"We have the possibility of making sure it doesn't happen again," Obama said.

 

He added that a "verifiable agreement" to disarm al-Assad of his chemical stockpiles will go further than any US military action could have in eliminating the threat of their use.

 

"If that goal is achieved, then it sounds to me like we did something right."

 

Arab League head Nabil al-Arabi, meanwhile, welcomed the accord on Syria, describing it as a step towards reaching a political solution to the country's 30-month conflict, which has left more than 100,000 dead, according to the United Nations.

 

"This agreement contributes to providing better circumstances for going to the Geneva 2 conference to fulfil a political settlement of the Syrian crisis," he said in Cairo.

 

Al-Arabi was referring to a peace parley on Syria jointly proposed by the US and Russia earlier this year. No date has ever been specified for it. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his French counterpart Laurent Fabius that his country welcomed the agreement on Syria.

 

The deal was "an important advance," Fabius told a press conference with Wang in Beijing, but still only "a first step."

 

It "raises a series of questions: How to carry out inspections? What happens if there are breaches?" said Fabius, who will meet Kerry and British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Monday in Paris to discuss the accord.

 

France is aiming for a tough resolution to enforce the pact. Fabius last week proposed a draft resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter - a clause that allows for military action in certain circumstances. The US later distanced itself from that version over the threat of force contained in the text, which Russia rejected.

 

Kerry and Lavrov said Saturday a Chapter VII resolution would only be considered at a later stage, if there was proof of non-compliance. China and Russia have repeatedly blocked resolutions against al-Assad in the UN Security Council, where they hold vetoes.

 

In Syria, two apparent suicide bombers were Sunday killed before managing to blow up an ambulance they were driving in a mostly Kurdish area near the border with Turkey, said a pro-opposition watchdog.

 

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, citing activists, reported that a Kurdish gunman shot dead the two men as they tried to slam their vehicle, packed with explosives, into the building of a Kurdish battalion in the province of Hassaka in northern Syria.

 

The identities of the two suspected bombers were not disclosed. Radical Islamists, fighting to oust al-Assad's regime, and Kurdish insurgents have repeatedly clashed in the area in recent months.

 

Kurds, who have been marginalized by the Syrian regime for years, are trying to keep their regions from falling into the hands of Islamist militants.

 

- Sapa-dpa