Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry have begun negotiations in Geneva.
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The top diplomats of Russian Federation and the United States are meeting in Geneva to discuss the Syria civil war, the Ukraine crisis and other issues.
Kerry stressed that the two sides were not prepared to make a definitive announcement, but said United States and Russian technical experts would continue to meet in Geneva in the coming days to hammer out a set of unresolved issues.
On Thursday Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova expressed concern for the “armed escalation” between pro-government forces and Kurdish militants in the northwestern Syrian city of Al-Hasakah. Syria is also getting help from Iran, and in recent days Turkey launched its own assault across its border with Syria, driving Islamic State fighters from the town of Jarabulus with American air support.
Civilians in other encircled towns were also malnourished, Egeland said, singling out rebel-besieged Foua and Kefraya in Idlib and government-besieged Madaya near Damascus, which have not had United Nations food deliveries in 116 days.
“We are close”, Kerry said.
The two men discussed “the prospects of coordinating Russian and USA actions to fight terrorism” and “the need to draw a boundary line between Syrian opposition forces orientated towards Washington and terrorist groups that hide behind them”, it said.
They also indicated that separating US-backed rebels from the al-Nusra Front has been one of the sticking points in the talks.
“We still need to finalize minor issues, that is why our experts will continue in Geneva next week”, he said.
At the same time, the Obama administration is not of one mind regarding the Russians. He said trucks are ready to bring humanitarian relief to the city.
This week, Turkey entered the fray, sending tanks, troops and aircraft across the Syrian border to help US -backed rebels drive Islamic State fighters out of the key border town of Jarabulus.
The third, he went on, is to use the 48-hour pause to fix the electricity plant in the southern part of Aleppo that serves 1.8 million people and even more importantly, power the pumping of water in the eastern and western parts of the city. “We want a pause for 48 hours”, he said. But equally high on the Turkish agenda was preventing US -supported Syrian Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State from occupying Jarabulus and the surrounding border area.
Those goals are not new, but recent developments have made achieving them even more urgent and important, according to US officials.
The surrender of Daraya, which became an early symbol of the nascent uprising against Assad, marks a success for his government, removing a persistent threat only a few miles from his seat of power.
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“I think there’s a shift in the balance of intellectual opinion in the administration, toward postponing “Assad must go” in the name of providing humanitarian assistance to save lives”, Kupchan said.
