Putin says he can't be sure Syria will comply with deal

Maxim Shipenkov / AFP - Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Valdai on Thursday.

By Albina Kovalyova and Erin McClam, NBC News

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he could not be certain that a plan for Syria to hand over its chemical weapons for destruction will be completed.

The agreement, brokered last weekend by the United States and Russia, forestalled the threat of an American military strike on Syria.

“I can’t say whether it will be possible to finalize these projects, but all that we have seen is reassuring that it will be done,” Putin told a gathering of foreign journalists, businessmen and policy experts.

He added: “Responsibility for Syria lies on all, not just Russia.”

The United Nations concluded this week that rockets loaded with sarin gas were fired into a suburb of Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Aug. 21. Syria has been mired in civil war for more than two years.

The United States says it has overwhelming evidence that the forces of Syrian leader Bashar Assad fired the rockets. Assad has denied his forces were involved, and both he and Putin have suggested it was the work of the rebels. The U.N. report made no finding on who used chemical weapons.

Putin last week published an Op-Ed in The New York Times criticizing the United States for, among other things, military adventurism. On Thursday, he questioned the presumption that Syrian “evil” needs to be punished.

“What’s evil there?” he asked. “That Assad’s family have been in power for 40 years?”

The U.S.-Russian deal calls for Syria to provide a full accounting of its chemical weapons and allow U.N. inspectors to start working no later than November. It envisions the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons by the middle of next year.

This story was originally published on Thu Sep 19, 2013 11:56 AM EDT