Ahead of the nation’s busiest holiday season, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday he knows of no “specific threat” to the US – and remains confident that “ISIS will be defeated”.
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Hollande is set for a week of global diplomacy including talks with US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Standing without shoes as a sign of respect in the mosque, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan speak to the media after touring the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Monday, November 23, 2015.
Kerry met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan on Monday and later held talks with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on ways to bring Syrian opposition groups together at a conference in Riyadh next month.
“This is an effort to see if we can get some concrete steps in place, begin to build them, maybe, that could calm things down a little bit so people aren’t living in absolutely daily terror that they might be stabbed or driven into or shot trying to walk around their city”, said Kerry, a former MA senator. Lavrov reiterated Russia’s traditional stance that Assad protected the interests of “a significant part of Syrian society” therefore it would not be possible to reach a settlement “without his participation”.
French police were yesterday examining what appears to be a suicide bomb belt dumped on a Paris street, 10 days after the attacks that killed 130 people.
Kerry, meanwhile, suggested the US was exploring some new ideas. He noted that the worldwide coalition fighting the extremist group in Syria and Iraq has only been engaged for about a year and has already captured one-quarter of ISIS’ territory, according to CNN.
And now, USA special forces are preparing to deploy into Syria to help local groups battle IS.
Saudi Arabia, which supports some of the Sunni rebel forces active on the battlefield, has taken charge of assembling a motley coalition of exile groups, armed factions and Islamist parties.
The hope is that if a broad enough “moderate” opposition coalition can enter peace negotiations with Assad’s loyalists, a path to a political transition can be found.
But he warned that if “certain entities” think that by working with Russian Federation the United States is helping Assad cling to power, that would imperil efforts to get Sunni rebels to the table.
“You don’t want to categorize everybody automatically”, he said.
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Shortly before Kerry and Netanyahu convened in Jerusalem, a Palestinian drove his vehicle into three Israeli soldiers and a paramilitary border policeman along a road in the occupied West Bank, injuring all four, the army said.
