Israeli President Shimon Peres. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Israeli President Shimon Peres voiced skepticism Wednesday over a Russian proposal to place Syrian chemical weapons under international custodianship.

Speaking at the Israeli Navy graduation ceremony Wednesday, Peres said, “Assad cannot be trusted to honor the agreement” but expressed optimism that Washington and Moscow could impose conditions on the Syrian president that would force him to give up his chemical weapons.

“I know both President Obama and President Putin and I am convinced that if an agreement is reached it will be reliable, explicit and significant. The agreement must ensure that Assad has no chemical weapons,” he said.

A Congressional vote on whether or not the U.S. should strike Syria militarily in response to the chemical weapons attack it carried out in late August was postponed earlier this week after Russia, which has backed the Assad regime in its more-than two-year-old civil war, proposed a solution whereby Syria would relinquish control of it chemical weapons arsenal.