John Kerry's Syria Solution In The Works For Months [View all]

[Tx4obama]

John Kerry's Syria Solution In The Works For Months

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State John Kerry may not have been speaking completely off the cuff on Monday when he said Syria could turn its chemical weapons over to the international community in order to avert a U.S. strike. In fact, the proposal appears to have been long in the making, pre-dating the horrific chemical attack in Damascus in late August.

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"This wasn't an accident," a top White House official told The Huffington Post.

President Barack Obama highlighted this fact on Tuesday when he met with Senate Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill for their respective caucus lunches.

According to a senior Senate aide, Obama told Democrats that he had asked Kerry to reach out to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and offer the diplomatic solution.

"He mentioned that that occurred during the G-20 meeting (a year ago), when he met with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin -- that he would assign Kerry to discuss diplomatic alternatives," added Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.).

A senior administration official confirmed to The Huffington Post that Obama and Putin first discussed the concept in Los Cabos at the G-20 in June 2012. After the first plenary session, while world leaders were mingling, Obama and Putin went to a corner of the room and spoke for nearly half an hour about Syria.

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Full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/john-kerry-syria-solution_n_3901863.html