FOXNews.com: Obama directs Kerry to pursue talks with Iran over nuclear weapons deal

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Obama directs Kerry to pursue talks with Iran over nuclear weapons deal Sep 24th 2013, 14:26 Published September 24, 2013 FoxNews.com President Obama, in an appeal Tuesday to the U.N. General Assembly, called on the international community to "enforce the ban" on chemical weapons and make sure Syria's Assad regime lives up to a pledge to turn over its stockpile.  He called for a "strong Security Council resolution" to hold Bashar Assad accountable.  If the U.N. cannot agree to this, he said, "then it will show that the United Nations is incapable of enforcing even the most basic of international laws."  But a strong resolution, he said, would send a "powerful message" that chemical weapons have no place in the modern world.  The president addressed the General Assembly session amid a whirlwind of international developments.  The Obama administration recently backed off the threat of military force against the Assad regime in Syria, after his government agreed to a U.S.-Russia-backed plan for Damascus to turn over its chemical weapons to international control. Obama, though, still is seeking a tough resolution from the U.N. Security Council to enforce this pledge, and has said he'll keep the threat of military action on the table.  He also spoke as the threat of Islamic terrorism once again reared its head, after an Al Qaeda-linked group stormed a shopping mall in Kenya, killing dozens of people. The stand-off with Kenyan security forces was still ongoing as the U.N. session got underway.  On the sidelines of the U.N. session, Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to meet with his Iranian counterpart. Iran's new president, Hassan Rowhani, has signaled interest in renewed talks over his country's nuclear program, though U.S. lawmakers have urged Obama to proceed with caution. Rowhani is slated to address the assembly late Tuesday afternoon.  Earlier, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged world leaders to stop fueling the bloodshed in Syria with weapons and get both sides to the negotiating table to end the "biggest challenge to peace and security in the world."  He called on the U.N. Security Council to adopt an "enforceable" resolution on the U.S.-Russian agreement to put Syria's chemical weapons under international control for future destruction and bring to justice the perpetrators of the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack outside Damascus to justice "either through referral to the International Criminal Court or by other means consistent with international law."  U.N. diplomats say differences between the U.S. and Russia on how a resolution should be enforced have held up action in the Security Council. Russia is opposed to any mention of Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which includes military and non-military actions to promote peace and security.  The secretary-general stressed that the international community "can hardly be satisfied with destroying chemical weapons while the wider war is still destroying Syria."  "The vast majority of the killing and atrocities have been carried out with conventional weapons," Ban said. "I appeal to all states to stop fueling the bloodshed and to end the arms flows to all parties."  The fighting in Syria has left more than 100,000 dead.  The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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