U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in London that Kerry would not be making another attempt with Lavrov if there were no prospects for success, but he added: “We’re a long way from getting there”.
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The ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that it is “deeply concerned” about the Turkish operation in Syria, which began two weeks ago.
Secretary of State John Kerry is heading to Geneva for yet another meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to try to forge a nationwide truce in Syria, improve humanitarian aid deliveries and restart peace talks.
The phone call was a United States initiative, the ministry added.
Kerry has long expressed frustration with the lack of progress on Syria and faced criticism for trying to make a deal with Russian Federation, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom U.S. President Barack Obama has said “must go”.
A ceasefire: There have been temporary ceasefires in Syria in the past, and US President Barack Obama says Russian Federation and the US “have had some productive conversations about what a real cessation of hostilities would look like, that would allow us both to focus our attention on common enemies”, but a final agreement has so far proved elusive, hampered by what Obama calls “gaps of trust” between the two superpowers.
Lavrov has suggested that problems in another part of the world – namely, USA sanctions against Russian Federation over the Ukraine crisis – may be hampering efforts between the former Cold War rivals to resolve “regional conflicts”, a reference to the Syrian war. As recently as Wednesday, a Russian fighter jet flew within 10 feet of a U.S Navy reconnaissance plane over the Black Sea – an incident the Americans described as “unsafe and unprofessional”.
The second official said one of the reasons Kerry kept up the effort was because the Syrian opposition supported it as a way to stop the worst violence in their country.
The former Al-Nusra Front, renamed Fateh al-Sham Front, announced on Twitter “the martyrdom” of commander Abu Omar Sarakeb.
Some 16 Syrian rebels were killed and 27 wounded.
An AFP correspondent in the city’s east said shops had been struggling since Sunday to secure goods to sell and that prices were skyrocketing.
“The price of a kilo of meat rose from 3,000 pounds ($6) to 6,000”, complained Ahmad, a father of three children, in the Bustan al-Qasr district, ravaged by air strikes. According to the Guardian, it is the most cohesive transition plan released by the body until now, and allows a six-month negotiation period resulting in the formation of a leading transitional governing body.
The fighting and the aerial bombardment sent tens of thousands of people fleeing for safety, creating the latest wave of displacement, part of a pattern that has left almost half of the Syrian population displaced since the war began in 2011.
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IS has used the chaos to spread throughout the country and into Iraq.
