UN Security Council votes to adopt resolution demanding destruction of Syria\'s chemical weapons

The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution on Friday that demands the eradication of Syria's chemical weapons but does not threaten automatic punitive action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government if it does not comply.

The unanimous vote by the 15-member Security Council capped weeks of intense diplomacy between Russia and the United States. It was based on a deal between the two countries reached in Geneva earlier this month following an Aug. 21 sarin nerve gas attack on a Damascus suburb that killed hundreds.

The U.S.-Russia deal averted punitive U.S. military action against Assad's government, which Washington blamed for the August attack. The Syrian government and its ally, Russia, blamed anti-government rebels for the attack.

One provision of the resolution, described by council diplomats as significant, formally endorses a plan for a political transition in Syria agreed on at an international conference in Geneva in June 2012.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said after the vote that the big powers hoped to hold a peace conference on Syria in mid-November in Geneva.

He told the council the plan to eradicate Syria's chemical weapons was "not a license to kill with conventional weapons."
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