William Hague has welcomed a "ground-breaking" United Nations resolution to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons, but called for greater efforts to end the suffering of its people.
The Foreign Secretary said the unanimous UN Security Council resolution was about "ensuring" that the horrors of the Assad regime's chemical attacks never happened again.
He claimed the focus was now on "the everyday horrors of the dire humanitarian situation" in Syria ahead of a new round of diplomatic discussions regarding Syria in Geneva in mid-November.
And he announced that Britain had pledged a three million-dollar (£1.8m) contribution to the intergovernmental body which works to ban chemical weapons.
Following the vote, Mr Hague said: "Let us not forget that council action today has come only after two and a half years of unchecked brutality and well over 100,000 dead and millions displaced.
"The failure of the council to tackle the crimes committed on a daily basis has resulted in a culture of impunity in which a brutal regime believed it could get away with murdering its own men, women and children.
"So it is vital that the council now builds on the consensus we have reached today to make progress today towards a sustainable resolution of the crisis.
"With renewed purpose and resolve, we need to achieve a political transition."
The unanimous resolution came after Russia and China had previously vetoed three Western-backed attempts to pressure President Bashar Assad into ending the violence.
Mr Hague said it imposed "legally binding and enforceable obligations on the Syrian regime".
In order to ensure the identification and removal of chemical weapons, he said Britain would give£1.8 million to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons and urged other countries to do the same.
Read More
US secretary of state John Kerry said the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile would begin in November and be completed by the middle of next year.
The permanent members of the security council also endorsed for the first time a road map for a political transition in Syria put forward in June 2012.
They declared their aim to a hold negotiations in Geneva in mid-November after the US and Russia achieved a deal there to tackle the issue of Assad's chemical weapons stockpile earlier this month.
Regarding the second meeting in Geneva, Mr Hague said: "The goal is something on which we all agree - a negotiated transition in Syria, starting with the formation of a transitional governing body with full executive powers formed on the basis of mutual consent."
