Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States has praised the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad a month after it planned to attack it.

Secretary of State John Kerry praised Assad for implementing his agreement to start destroying Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.

Kerry, in remarks that angered neighboring Turkey, said he was “very pleased” that CW was being eliminated within a week of a United Nations Security Council resolution on Syria.

“I think it’s also credit to the Assad regime for complying rapidly, as they are supposed to do,” Kerry said on Oct. 7. “Now, we hope that will continue.”

Officials acknowledged that Kerry’s remarks dismayed U.S. allies in the Middle East. On Oct. 8, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, deemed the closest foreign leader to Obama, rejected the U.S. assessment of Assad.

“He [Assad] deserves no praise,” Erdogan said.

This marked the first time that the administration of President Barack Obama praised the conduct of the Assad regime. In September, Obama ordered and then canceled preparations for air strikes on Syria in wake of massive CW strikes on rebel-held strongholds around Damascus.

The initial CW elimination stemmed from a U.S.-Russian agreement to dismantle Assad’s stockpile of chemical precursors. Under the plan, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons sent a team to oversee the destruction of Syria’s CW rockets, shells and other munitions, deemed the largest such stockpile in the Middle East.

Within a day of Kerry’s remarks, the State Department sought to control the damage. Kerry’s aides said the secretary’s assessment of Assad did not
mean acceptance of his regime.

“No one is giving him any praise,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. “Our position on him is the same: that he has lost all legitimacy to lead Syria.”

  Praise for Assad? State Dept. tries to walk back Kerry’s statement, Recep Erdogan, Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, UN Security Council