The US has called for a binding UN resolution on Syria's chemical weapons next week, as a senior Syrian official said the country's conflict has reached a stalemate.
A "definitive" UN report has proved that the Syrian regime was behind an August chemical weapons attack, US Secretary of State John Kerry said.
"Now the test comes. The (UN) Security Council must be prepared to act next week. It is vital for the international community to stand up and speak out," he added.
Syria's deputy premier, meanwhile, said Damascus believes the conflict has reached a stalemate and would call for a ceasefire if long-delayed peace talks in Geneva were to take place.
"Neither the armed opposition nor the regime is capable of defeating the other side," Qadri Jamil told Britain's Guardian newspaper.
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Asked what his government would propose at the stalled Geneva-2 summit, he replied: "An end to external intervention, a ceasefire and the launching of a peaceful political process."
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in an interview Wednesday with US television network Fox News, insisted his country was the victim of infiltration by foreign-backed Al-Qaeda fighters.
"What we have is not civil war. What we have is war. It's a new kind of war," he said, alleging that Islamist guerrillas from more than 80 countries had joined the fight.
The president's television appearance came as UN envoys debated a draft resolution that would enshrine a joint US-Russian plan to secure and neutralise his banned chemical weapons.
Assad insisted in the interview that his forces had not been behind an August 21 gas attack on the Damascus suburbs that killed hundreds of civilians, but vowed nevertheless to hand over his deadly arsenal.
After last month's barrage of sarin-loaded rockets, which the West says was clearly launched by the regime, US President Barack Obama moved to the brink of punitive military strikes.
However, military action was put on hold after an agreement between the US and Russia aimed at neutralising Syria's chemical stockpile.
That plan will face its first big test on Saturday, the one-week deadline announced by Moscow and the US for Assad to provide a list of his chemical facilities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he was confident but not 100 per cent sure that Syria would carry out its commitments.
"Will we manage to carry it through? I can't say 100 per cent, but all that we have seen recently, in the last few days, inspires confidence that it is possible and that it will be done," Putin said at a meeting in the Novgorod region.
Meanwhile, Kerry urged China to play a "positive, constructive" role at the UN on the planned resolution.
Away from the diplomatic front, fighters allied to Al-Qaeda tightened their grip Thursday on a town on the border with Turkey.
And a bomb attack on a bus in the central province of Homs killed 14 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding to the more than 110,000 casualties of the 30-month conflict.
