In whirlwind, round-the-clock diplomacy in Geneva, the United States and Russia hammered out a landmark framework for dismantling and destroying one of the world's largest stockpiles of chemical arms.
By next Friday
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Horror of Homs...
faces his first litmus test of the seriousness of his regime's stated commitment to bring its deadly chemical arms under international control.
The deal hammered out in Geneva has to go first to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to be agreed, but within seven days Assad must put on the table a full declaration of the extent of his long secret program.
The United States believes Syria is dotted with some 45 sites connected to the chemical weapons program -- of which nearly half contain "exploitable chemical agents" for mixing toxic gasses.
Questions remain over whether the U.S. and Russia can meet their goal of removing and destroying some 1,000 metric tonnes by mid-2014, but U.S. experts emerging from three days of non-stop talks with Russian counterparts insist it can be done.
"It's very, very difficult, but it's doable," said one U.S. administration official, with another calling it an "ambitious" timetable.
Under the plan, arms inspectors and experts must be given immediate access to the sites in question to begin neutralizing them and locking them down. And all initial inspections of sites are due to be completed by November.