Russia balks at French plan for U.N. Security Council resolution on Syrian chemical arms MOSCOW - A last-ditch effort to avert a U.S. military strike by transferring control of Syrian chemical weapons ran into obstacles Tuesday, as Russia balked at a French plan to enforce an international agreement under a binding U.N. Security Council resolution with a military option if necessary. An unexpected Russian proposal to place Syria's chemical weapons under international monitoring and ultimately destroy them had appeared to be gaining traction earlier in the day, as Syria embraced it, China and Iran voiced support, and the United States said it would explore the idea seriously. See all six of Obama's interviews about Syria. Will Englund, Michael Birnbaum and Loveday Morris Transfer, dismantling of Syrian chemical weapons could avert U.S. military strike. Ahmed Ramadan and Loveday Morris Both sides, however, seem to agree that the proposal has wrong-footed President Obama. Anne Gearan, Karen DeYoung and Will Englund Syria embraces Moscow's call to relinquish control of chemical weapons to avoid a U.S. strike. Walter Pincus A lesson for the White House: Handling Syria required early preparation for any action. But a telephone conversation between French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, revealed a deep divide over their visions of the Security Council's role - and particularly over the prospect of military action to ensure that an agreement would be honored. There were also doubts about how Syria's stockpiles of chemical weapons could be transferred to international monitors in the midst of a bloody and protracted civil war that has claimed more than 100,000 lives. The call took place after France said it would draft a U.N. Security Council resolution to put the Russian proposal into effect. Click here for live updates on developments related to Syria. In Washington, Secretary of State John F. Kerry told a House committee that the proposal "is the ideal way" to take chemical weapons away from the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But he warned that the United States would not tolerate "delay" or "avoidance," adding: "We're waiting for that proposal, but we're not waiting for long." Kerry will travel to Europe this week to discuss the proposal with Lavrov, a senior administration official said later Tuesday. The meeting will be Thursday in Geneva, where the United States and Russia hope to convene a separate peace conference on Syria, the official said. With support crumbling on Capitol Hill for a resolution authorizing military strikes on Syria, a bipartisan group of senators began coalescing Tuesday around a proposal that would call on the United Nations to condemn the Syrian government for using chemical weapons against its people and order U.N. inspectors into the country to recover the weapons. If the efforts were unsuccessful, the proposal would give President Obama the authority to order military strikes, according to Senate aides familiar with the talks. But Russian President Vladi­mir Putin said Tuesday that the disarmament plan could succeed only if the United States and its allies renounced the use of force against Syria. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem, meanwhile, said his government is ready to disclose the locations of its chemical weapons stockpiles, halt production and show its facilities to representatives of Russia, the United Nations and other states, Russia's Interfax news agency reported. In a statement upon ending a visit to Moscow, Moualem also said Syria is willing to sign the international treaty that bans the use of chemical weapons and to dispose of all the chemical arms it possesses now, according to Interfax.