The United States will take a hard look at a Russian proposal to put Syrian chemical weapons under international control, but it is skeptical, the State Department said this evening.

"We'll have to take a hard look at the Russian statement ... so we understand exactly what the Russians are proposing here," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. "Clearly we have some serious skepticism," she said.

It was also confirmed that US Secretary of State John Kerry had a long telephone conversation this afternoon with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

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