The United States is waiting to see a real and verifiable plan from Russia for removing chemical weapons from Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry said this afternoon.
However, he said that the US will not wait long and will not accept a delaying tactic.
"We're waiting for that proposal. But we're not waiting for long," Mr Kerry told a hearing of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.
"President [Barack] Obama will take a hard look at it. But it has to be swift, it has to be real, it has to be verifiable. It cannot be a delaying tactic," Mr Kerry told the panel.
Earlier, the Syrian government accepted a Russian proposal to put its chemical weapons under international control to avoid a possible US military strike.
"We held a very fruitful round of talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday, and he proposed an initiative relating to chemical weapons. And in the evening we agreed to the Russian initiative," Minister Walid al-Moualem said.
He said Syria had agreed because this would "remove the grounds for American aggression".
Mr Lavrov said the plan would be presented to other nations soon and that the proposal was not entirely Russian but grew out of contacts with the US.
A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said he and Mr Obama discussed the idea of putting Syria's chemical weapons under international control on the sidelines of last week's G20 summit.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said the onus was on Russia and Syria to show the chemical weapons handover proposal is genuine and that serious questions needed to be answered.
China and Iran have both offered their backing for the Russian proposal.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France would propose a UN Security Council resolution setting out conditions for Syria to hand over its chemical weapons.
He said the resolution would warn of "extremely serious" consequences for Syria if it breached those conditions.
However, Gulf Arab states said this afternoon the Russian proposal would not stop bloodshed in Syria.
"We've heard of the initiative ... It's all about chemical weapons but doesn't stop the spilling of the blood of the Syrian people," Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa told a news conference in Jeddah.
Bahrain holds the presidency of the Sunni Muslim-led Gulf Cooperation Council, a main backer of rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Its foreign minister said the GCC states were ready to deal with any threat against them based on their support for the rebels.
Mr Obama has argued that President Assad must be punished for what the US said was a poison gas attack that killed over 1,400 people last month.
Mr Lavrov said he had put a proposal to his Syrian counterpart during Moscow talks after US Secretary of State John Kerry said a strike could be avoided if the Syrian regime handed over its chemical weapons.
Rebels fighting Mr Assad's forces on the ground dismissed any such weapons transfer as impossible to police and a decoy to frustrate US plans to attack.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has urged the US to proceed with "extreme caution" on Syria and Chinese President Xi Jinping told Mr Obama at a G20 summit in Russia that a military strike could not solve the problem.
Rights group issues report
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has said that evidence strongly suggests Syrian government forces were responsible for a chemical weapons attack near Damascus last month.
The US-based rights group said it had reached its conclusion after analysing witness accounts, remnants of the weapons used and medical records of victims.
It said the type of rockets and launchers used "strongly suggests that these are weapon systems known and documented to be only in the possession of, and used by, Syrian government armed forces".
HRW said both it and arms experts "have not documented Syrian opposition forces to be in possession of the 140mm and 330mm rockets used in the attack, or their associated launchers".
The Human Rights Watch report comes as the US pushes for congressional approval for military strikes on Syria.
President Assad, in an interview on CBS, denied there was any evidence to link his government to the gas attack and warned the US to expect reprisals for any military strike on his country.
Human Rights Watch said it also investigated suggestions the chemical attacks came from opposition forces.
It said: "Human Rights Watch has investigated alternative claims that opposition forces themselves were responsible for the August 21 attacks, and has found such claims lacking in credibility and inconsistent with the evidence found at the scene."
Ireland wants 'accountability'
Elsewhere, Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore said Ireland wants to see accountability for the slaughter and suffering of the people of Syria.
The Tánaiste said the way to do that was through the International Criminal Court.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Seán O'Rourke, Mr Gilmore also said the immediate objective needs to be to prevent chemical weapons being used again.
He said the evidence pointed to their use by the Syrian government regime and welcomed the proposals of yesterday to put Syria's chemical weapons stockpile under international control.
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