Little filtered out about his Kremlin meeting with the Russian head of state, but Kerry’s spokesman said he would “explore initiatives in more detail” with Lavrov.
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Putin had expressed reluctance to meet with Kerry, and the US delegation seemed more prepared for the Lavrov-Kerry talks than did the Russians, unloading large binders onto the negotiation table compared with the Russians’ handful of papers.
“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”.
But “diplomatic efforts could not continue indefinitely” in the absence of concrete, near-term steps, Kirby reported Kerry as saying.
“My last conversation with President Obama has convinced me that we are indeed striving not only to establish a process of cooperation but also to achieve important results”.
Kerry and Lavrov are also expected to discuss the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Critics include the Pentagon and US State Department officials who voiced their concerns in regards to Russia’s support for the Assad regime.
According to a leaked document seen by the Washington Post, Kerry was set to push for Moscow to more closely cooperate with the USA military against the Al-Nusra Front jihadist group in Syria.
Both the United States and Russian Federation have aircraft that conduct operations over Syria, and a draft of the proposed agreement, a copy of which was obtained by CNN, would allow for targeting and carrying out joint air strikes against ISIS and al-Nusra, the al Qaeda branch in Syria.
Washington blames the failure of the peace process on Assad’s ceasefire violations and on the Nusra Front’s increasing influence among the surviving rebel factions. But Russia backs Syrian President Bashar Assad; the US supports rebels fighting against him.
“We’ve done a lot of groundwork but we’re not where we need to be yet”, he said.
“I want to emphasize, though, they are not based on trust”, Kerry said, referring to the key parts of the agreement.
De Mistura said the talks “have a target date of August” and need to be “a credible beginning of a roadmap towards a political transition”.
Five years into a Syrian civil war that has killed thousands and forced millions to flee their homes, Russian Federation and the United States are the most influential outside players in the conflict, but the objectives they are pursuing diverge.
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The eight-page proposal that was published earlier by The Washington Post, lays out an extensive plan to create a joint military command center that would enable the sharing of intelligence between the two parties. Turkey’s military said it had seized control.
