Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem addresses the media in Moscow, September 9, 2013. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Syrian government has accepted a Russian proposal to put its chemical weapons under international control to avoid a possible U.S. military strike, Interfax news agency quoted Syria’s foreign minister as saying on Tuesday.

“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,” Interfax quoted the minister, Walid al-Moualem, as telling the speaker of Russia’s lower house parliament house in Moscow.

He said Syria had agreed because this would “remove the grounds for American aggression,” the report said.