According to the State Department, discussions between Secretary Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday morning are expected to explore the initiatives in further detail.
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At the start of the meetings Friday it was unclear if the USA and Russian Federation would agree on a deal to increase military cooperation in Syria in exchange for Russian Federation using its influence to ground Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s air force.
The plan would create a Joint Implementation Group in which the two countries could work together on airstrikes that target groups that both countries agree are terrorists.
The proposal was discussed amid harsh criticism blaming the Obama administration for conceding to Russian demands in Syria. The plan also includes coordinated air strikes on the Islamic State and the Al Nusra Front.
“They have to decide if they’re going to use the military to prop up the Assad regime or if they’re going to use their military to go after extremists”, Earnest said, “Our case is you can’t do both”.
Speaking to NBC News in Damascus, in an interview broadcast Thursday, Assad insisted Putin and Lavrov had never raised the issue of his departure or a political transition.
Russian Federation would confine air strikes to vetted targets and not let Syrian forces bomb “designated areas”.
The Russians would gain a critical win they have been seeking for months: intelligence about where US aircraft are operating.
Soon after flying in to Moscow late on Thursday, Kerry had talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin that focused on the conflict in Syria.
According to him, the exchange of information in this area “is present, but still, unfortunately, we are not much closer to real cooperation in order to increase the effectiveness of efforts to combatting terrorism in Syria”. US supports rebels fighting against him.
Mozahem al-Saloum of the New Syrian Army, which is fighting IS in eastern Syria, blamed Nusra for paving the way for IS, and said the US plan could work if it guarantees Assad’s departure.
The military partnership is part of what US officials are terming a final offer to Moscow.
On the second and final day of his visit to Moscow, Kerry called for stepping up cooperation between the United States and Russian Federation to thwart jihadist groups and revive the stalled Syria peace process, hours after at least 84 people were killed in an attack in Nice.
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The extent of coordination set out in the document would represent a major shift after years of rivalry between Washington and Moscow, who support opposing sides in Syria’s five-year-old civil war. “They said they were coming in to fight ISIL”, he said.
