US and Russia Reach Agreement

After days of intense negotiations, the United States and Russia reached agreement Saturday on a framework to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons by mid-2014 and impose U.N. penalties if the Assad government fails to comply.

The deal, announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, includes what Kerry called "a shared assessment" of the weapons stockpile, and a timetable and measures for Syrian President Bashar Assad to follow so that the full inventory can be identified and seized.

The U.S. and...

Even as they trade barbs publicly -- and even as artillery shells and accusations continue to fly in Syria -- the United States and Russia could take solace Friday in at least one respect: They are still talking.
Discussions between the two in Geneva -- centered around Moscow's proposal to have Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government hand over its chemical weapons stockpile -- were supposed to end Friday. They continued through the night and were extended into Saturday for a reason, U.S. officials said.
"If there was no...