The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council reached an agreement on Thursday evening in an effort to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons, The Asssociated Press reported.
The draft resolution has demanded that Syria abandon its stockpile of chemicals weapons.
If Syria fails to comply, the council will need to adopt a second resolution to impose measures under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which could enable military or nonmilitary actions in order to promote peace and security.
The term "use of force," which the U.S. had been seeking for the past weeks, is not included in the Resolution, and opposition from Congress and other members of the Security Council, reduce the chances of U.S. acting, unless it is done unilaterally.
The agreement exhibited a rare showing of unity at the Security Council between Russia, Bashar Assad's chief weapons supplier, and the U.S., which has backed the opposition. Secretary of State John Kerry, who only weeks ago likened the Assad regime to Adolf Hitler, appeared collegial with his Russian counterpart hours earlier.
The draft plan obtained by The AP authorizes the body to inspect "any other site identified by a State Party as having been involved in the Syrian chemical weapons program, unless deemed unwarranted by the Director-General."
The U.N. Resolution comes after a month since the U.S. threatened the U.S. of force against Assad's regime for using chemical weapons. Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov signed an agreement in Geneva on September 13 to put Syria's chemical weapons under international control, to be later destroyed.
"If implemented fully, this resolution will eliminate one of the largest previously undeclared chemical weapons programs in the world," Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. said.
Diplomacy analysts see this "Breakthrough" at the Security Concil as a victory for Russia, in that they were able to avert limited strikes by the U.S.
The Syrian civil war has killed over 100,000 people, according to UN estimates.
