President Obama said there was a “significant breakthrough” in the diplomatic stalemate between the US and Syria on Monday as President Bashar al-Assad’s regime “welcomed” a Russian proposal to abandon its chemical weapons.
Obama said the proposal, which would send the weapons to international monitors so they could be destroyed, was a positive development that could avert a US military strike.
Although the Syrian government “welcomed” the Russian initiative, it did not indicate whether it would comply.
“Between the statements that we saw from the Russians — the statement today from the Syrians — this represents a potentially positive development,” Obama told NBC News.
“This could potentially be a significant breakthrough,” he added. “But we have to be skeptical because this is not how we’ve seen them operate over the last couple of years.”
He went on. “We are going to run this to ground. [Secretary of State] John Kerry will be talking to his Russian counterpart. We’re going to make sure that we see how serious these proposals are.”
Obama also said he discussed the idea with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week during a G-20 summit in Saint Petersburg.
The diplomatic development comes as the president faces growing opposition on Capitol Hill to a possible Syrian intervention.
A vote to authorize a military strike was indefinitely postponed Monday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
Reid said it wouldn’t be beneficial to hold the vote while international discussions continue.
Obama said he was unsure whether he would order a military strike if Congress didn’t act.
“I think it’s fair to say that I haven’t decided,” Obama said. “I am taking this vote in Congress and what the American people are saying very seriously.”
Meanwhile, Kerry indicated that any US military attack on Syria would be “unbelievably small.”
“We’re not going to war. We will not have people at risk in that way,’’ Kerry told reporters in London after meeting with the foreign secretary of Britain, whose government has already refused to support a strike.
“We will be able to hold Bashar Assad accountable without engaging troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort in a very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war,’’ Kerry said.
“That is exactly what we’re talking about doing — [an] unbelievably small, limited kind of effort.”
Kerry was immediately blasted by members of Congress who back the administration’s push for at least air raids in retaliation for Syria’s deadly use of chemical weapons on its own people last month.
“Kerry says #Syria strike would be ‘unbelievably small’ — that is unbelievably unhelpful,” tweeted Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Assad warned in an interview that aired Monday on “CBS This Morning’’ that a US strike could lead to attacks on American military bases.
“Not necessarily through the [Syrian] government — the government is not the only player in this region,’’ Assad said.
“You have different parties, you have different factions, you have different ideology. You have everything in this region now.”
Obama will get the chance to explain his stance to the American public in a special televised address Tuesday night.
But the president is losing momentum quickly on Capitol Hill, where both Republicans and Democrats have voiced opposition to the resolution.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota is among those Democrats not ready to join their party leader in his call for military force.
“I still have serious concerns,’’ she said in a statement Monday. “I cannot support the current Senate resolution to authorize force at this time.”
She said she’s working on a proposal that would “give the Assad government 45 days to sign an international chemical weapons ban and begin the process of turning over its chemical weapons.”
Additional reporting by S.A. Miller in Washington