Syria hands chemical data to world watchdog on time

Syria has handed over complete data on its chemical arsenal to the world's watchdog, meeting today deadline to avert military strikes, as regime aircraft pounded targets across the country.
The Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it was examining the Syrian information that was the focus of a US-Russian deal to head off US strikes against Syria.
The disclosure came as a senior Kremlin official said Russia may change its position on ally Syria if it sees any "cheating" by the regime.
Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov did not clarify, in comments reported by Russian news agencies, but added he expected Syria's chemical arsenal to be disclosed within a week.

UN envoys, meanwhile, have struggled to agree on the wording of a resolution to enshrine the deal, which stipulates that Syria's chemical arsenal must be destroyed by mid-2014.
The "OPCW has confirmed that it has received the expected disclosure from the Syrian government regarding its chemical weapons programme," it said today.

"The Technical Secretariat is currently reviewing the information received."
Yesterday the OPCW said it had received initial data from Syria and was expecting more.
The US-Russian agreement, worked out after Washington threatened military action in response to an August 21 chemical weapons attack outside Damascus, requires Syria to hand over its entire chemical arsenal.

It has received widespread international support, including from China, whose Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing would "support the early launch of the process to destroy Syria's chemical weapons".
Ivanov cautioned today that the process could be complicated because the Syrian army does not control the entire country.
"We still don't know where the chemical weapons are located geographically. I think this will become clear within a week," he told a conference in Stockholm.
Russia is a key backer of Syria and one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Britain, China, France and the United States.

Since Monday the panel has wrangled over the wording of a resolution to back the destruction of Syria's chemical arsenal.
Washington, Paris and London want a strongly worded resolution, possibly under the UN Charter's Chapter VII, which could allow the use of force or sanctions to ensure compliance -- a move Moscow opposes.