The UN Security Council cancelled a meeting last night on a resolution aimed at securing and destroying Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles.
Australian ambassador Gary Guinlan wrote in a Twitter message that the meeting was cancelled "following withdrawal of the request for consultations".
Council diplomats said Russia had asked for the meeting.
The Syrian government has accepted a proposal from Russia, its most powerful ally, to give up its chemical weapons stockpile.
France announced that it plans to introduce a Security Council resolution to ensure international verification of the disarmament. earlier Russian president Vladimir Putin said that the plan for Syria to turn over its chemical weapons stockpile would only work if the US agreed not to use force.
Mr Putin told reporters that the plan "can work, only in the event that we hear that the American side and those who support the USA, in this sense, reject the use of force."
US president Barack Obama had thrown his support behind a French resolution to the UN Security Council even as he continued to push the idea of US airstrikes against Mr Assad's regime if that effort fails. The resolution would demand that Syria open its chemical weapons programme to inspection, place it under international control, and ultimately dismantle it.