The United States and Russian Federation on Friday renewed efforts to secure a military and humanitarian cooperation agreement for war-torn Syria after months of hesitation, missed deadlines and failed attempts to forge a truce.
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He said he awaited Friday’s meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva before commenting further on his “political initiatives” to relaunch the political process.
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.
He added that the “vast majority” of technical obstacles to a ceasefire had been agreed but that some issues remained unresolved.
The third element of hthe plan, he said, is to fix Aleppo’s electrical plant, which supplies 1.8 million people on both sides with both electricity and water. “The trucks are ready to depart”, De Mistura said. “We as one Syrian people can not accept aid at a time when global organizations can not send aid to other cities under siege”.
Lavrov echoed his American counterpart, telling reporters that “very important steps” had been made on a deal to stop the violence.
President Assad’s future is not part of the current talks.
Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy for Syria, joined the conversations in the early afternoon, and told The Associated Press after the break: “We are still working”.
De Mistura had voiced hope of bringing the warring parties back to the negotiating table by the end of August, but that deadline looks sure to slip in the face of intense fighting on the ground. He suspended the talks in late April after a resurgence in the fighting. Lavrov and Kerry met in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday as fighting in Syria becomes more volatile and complicated by the introduction of Turkish ground forces.
Kerry first made the truce and coordination proposal during a visit to Moscow last month.
In a nod to previous failed attempts to resurrect the cessation of hostilities, Kerry stressed the importance of keeping the details secret.
“We want a pause for 48 hours”, he said. “Until we have, neither of us are prepared to make an announcement that is predicated for failure”. Under the USA -proposed coordination deal, which the White House has approved over Pentagon objections, Russian and American planners would coordinate targets in real time and agree on whose aircraft would strike them.
Expectations are low for the talks, particularly given how efforts to forge a new U.S. -Russia understanding have fallen short virtually every month for the past five years. At the same time, the administration is not of one mind regarding the Russians. Just last week the USA had to call for Russian help when Syrian warplanes struck in an area not far from where US troops were operating on the ground. The U.N. has been pushing for a 48-hour cease-fire in beleaguered Aleppo so humanitarian aid can be shipped into the city. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says that, while a conclusive deal still alluded them, clarity on many issues was achieved.
Those goals are not new, but recent developments have made achieving them even more urgent and important, according to USA officials.
In the days ahead the technical teams, which include USA and Russian military and intelligence experts, will try to figure out ways to separate the opposition groups, backed by the United States and Gulf Arab countries, from the jihadis.
Meanwhile, in a blow to the opposition, rebel forces and civilians in the besieged Damascus suburb of Daraya were to be evacuated on Friday after agreeing to surrender the town late Thursday after four years of grueling bombardment and a crippling siege that left the sprawling area in ruins.
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Asked about the possibility for success, as the two shook hands and sat down in a Geneva lakeside hotel, Lavrov said, “I don’t want to spoil the atmosphere for the negotiations”.
