The New York Times on Wednesday published an  op-ed by Vladimir Putin in which the Russian president urged the United States not to launch an attack on Syria. “We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement,” Putin wrote in encouraging President Barack Obama to pursue the possibility of a […]

President Obama told the nation Tuesday he is exploring a Russian diplomatic plan to end a chemical weapons dispute in Syria, but reserves the right to take military action if necessary, USA Today reports. In a nationally-televised address from the White House, the Washington Postreports Obama cautiously welcomed a Russian proposal that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad give up […]

Russia and Syria embraced Secretary of State John Kerry’s suggestionMonday that the Syrian government could avert a U.S. attack by placing its chemical weapons under international control, upending the Obama administration’s efforts to sharpen its case for military action, theWashington Post reports. Meanwhile, with just two words, Kerry managed to illustrate the Obama administration’s overall ambivalence toward […]

Syrian government forces may have carried out a chemical weapons attack close to Damascus without the personal permission of President Bashar al-Assad, Germany’s Bild am Sonntag paper reported on Sunday, citing German intelligence. Assad, who previously denied he was behind the attack, “suggested that there would be, among people that are aligned with him, some kind of […]

Russia says it has compiled a 100-page report detailing what it says is evidence that Syrian rebels, not forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, were behind a deadly sarin gas attack in an Aleppo suburb earlier this year, McClatchy reports. Though the report itself was not released, the statement drew a pointed comparison between what it said […]