Syrian Government's Reaction The The U.S. - Russian Deal On Chemcial Weapons

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gesture, following meetings regarding Syria, at a news conference in Geneva September 14, 2013. REUTERS-Larry Downing

Syrian Official Declares 'Victory,' Thanks Russia -- CNN

(CNN) -- A Syrian minister declared "victory" for his country on Sunday, thanking Russia for orchestrating a chemical weapons deal to avert U.S. military action, Russia's state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported.

"We welcome these agreements. On the one hand, they will help Syrians come out of the crisis, and on the other hand, they prevented the war against Syria by having removed a pretext for those who wanted to unleash it," National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar was quoted as saying.

He called the deal an achievement of Russian diplomacy, and "a victory for Syria won thanks to our Russian friends," RIA Novosti reported.

The Syrian regime recently created the "national reconciliation" post to send a message that it wants to end the brutal violence that has led to more than 100,000 deaths, according to U.N. estimates.

The opposition ridicules the post as mere window dressing.

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Update: Damascus Hails US-Russia Deal on Syria Chemical Weapons -- RIA Novosti

My Comment: It is certainly back to normal on the battlefield.

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Syria's Rebels Are Caught Between A Rock And A Hard Place

Free Syrian Army fighters (Reuters/Muzaffar Salman)

Syria’s Secular Rebels Caught Between Assad And The Islamists -- Times of Israel

One of the reasons for Obama’s swerve away from intervention is the sorry state of the opposition, increasingly infiltrated by jihadi extremists

The media — this writer included — have a natural tendency, almost a reflex, to try to summarize events as quickly as possible. We want to award scores, to declare winners and losers, to transform a vague, sometimes confused picture into something clearer and sharper, divided into blacks and whites.

In the American and Israeli media, immediately after Syria agreed to the Russian initiative for international supervision of its chemical weapons, clear divisions of just that kind were immediately registered by US President Barack Obama’s supporters and his critics. There were those who said Bashar Assad was the big winner, and those who insisted that Obama had proved his mastery of international diplomacy and forced Damascus to surrender without a bullet being fired.

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My Comment: Syria's secular rebels need not worry on what to do next .... Al Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria have just declared an offensive against them.

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