US Secretary of State John Kerry, who was on his way to Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin, did not deny the report, but refused to discuss the proposal in detail until he had been to the Kremlin.
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According to a leaked document seen by the Washington Post, Kerry’s key proposal is to offer Russian Federation closer U.S. military cooperation against the Al Nusra Front jihadist group. “And I think he maintains that skepticism”.
“If Russia can behave in a more positive fashion, then we would be open to that conversation”, Cook said.
But Kerry is pressing ahead.
Kerry spoke to reporters as he finished more than 10 hours of negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Let Kerry bring the plans first, ” she told the media in Moscow.
But a Kremlin spokesman said that Putin and Kerry had not directly discussed military cooperation between Moscow and Washington in Syria.
Kerry has been accused by some within the US foreign policy establishment of being too willing to make concessions to Russian Federation over Syria.
The talks “have a target date of August”, de Mistura said, adding that they need to be “a credible beginning of a roadmap towards a political transition”. That’s why the Pentagon was initially opposed to the plan. He has deployed limited US air power, along with a small number of covert forces on the ground.
It said strikes against those targets could be carried out by U.S. or Russian jets and expanded coordination would be channelled through a Joint Implementation Group based in the vicinity of the Jordanian capital, Amman. The strikes would be confined to the designated jointly agreed upon Nusra areas.
Strikes against those targets could be carried out by US or Russian jets.
Syrian President Bashar Assad is interviewed on American network NBC News, in Damascus, Syria.
Putin has long sought USA military collaboration against Jabhat al-Nusra. Russian Federation hasn’t hesitated. But in taking out Nusra forces, the USA says Russian Federation also has killed hundreds of moderate, anti-Assad fighters and civilians. Now the USA would benefit from Moscow’s inroads into targeting the group.
The agreement does not necessarily pertain to ISIS, with the draft saying that each country would reserve the right to strike ISIS independently.
Mozahem al-Saloum of the New Syrian Army, which is fighting the Islamic State in eastern Syria, blamed the Nusra Front for paving the way for the Islamic State, and said the US plan could work if it guarantees Assad’s departure.
Bits and pieces of the U.S. -Russia plan have been leaking out in recent days, and there are many skeptics in the U.S. who feel the most likely outcome would be to help Russian Federation achieve its aim of bolstering the embattled Assad. That is another key win for Moscow. “I said everything I wanted on the issue”, he said.
Washington blames the failure of the peace process on Assad’s ceasefire violations and on Al-Nusra’s increasing influence among the surviving rebel factions.
He concluded, “They haven’t done either of those things”.
“The Russian air force has increased the intensity of its strikes against targets of the armed units of worldwide terrorist organisations near the city of Palmyra”, the ministry said in a statement Thursday on its Facebook page. But beyond that, he remains publicly cautious when asked about additional sharing of airstrike information.
The US and Russian Federation have late Friday identified the war in Syria as the world’s principal “incubator” for terrorism, as they discussed tightening coordination to handle the five-year crisis. “That’s what we’ve been urging them to do since they came in”.
Still, there is a growing sense in Washington that al-Nusra must be dealt with in Syria.
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For that reason, the US has nearly entirely avoided bombing Nusra targets in recent months.
