Syrian Crisis May Be Resolved Through Diplomacy

Just a few weeks ago there was a major debate going on between world leaders about what the best course of action was to prevent another incident of the chemical attack like the one the innocent residents of Syria were subjected to, on August 21st, 2013.

The USA and France wanted to conduct air strikes to try destroy the government's chemical arsenal, while Russia and many other countries in the world were leaning towards a diplomatic solution. After much argument, a compromise was reached.

On September 14th, the United Sates and the Bashar Al Assad's closest ally, Russia, announced that they would work with the Syrian government to eliminate the country's chemical weapon hoard by mid-2014. The landmark decision to try solve this issue peacefully through diplomacy was met with relief by nations all across the world.

Under the agreement struck between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, in order to avoid air strikes the Syrian government would share the details of its chemical weapon stockpiles within a week. Following that they would grant inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) complete access to the weapons no later than November 2013.

On Friday, September 20th, the Syrian government complied with the first condition by sending in a list of its chemical weapons to the OPCW, a consortium of 189 countries that have signed an agreement outlawing such arsenal. While no details have been released with regards to the weapons, the fact that President Assad has fulfilled the first request indicates that he many be willing to work out a settlement. This has led to tepid optimism that a peaceful resolution will be reached, averting what could have become a major crisis. We sure hope that the process continues peacefully!

Resources: nydailynews.com, news.yahoo.com, worldnews.nbc.com