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United States offers Russian Federation closer cooperation to save Syria plan

The meeting broke up at 1.00 am on Friday after three hours of closed-door talks.

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The Secretary expressed concern about repeated violations of the cessation of hostilities by the Syrian regime.

The United States is to offer to cooperate with Russian Federation in joint military action against Al-Nusra Front and Islamic State (IS) in Syria, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Kerry “emphasized that absent concrete, near-term steps, diplomatic efforts could not continue indefinitely”, a statement said, and that further talks between representatives of the 2 governements would continue on Friday.

The document, published by The Washington Post, calls for joint bombing operations, a command-and-control headquarters and other synchronized efforts.

Per the agreement, the US and Russia will establish a joint operations center inside Jordan that would house USA and Russian intelligence officers to coordinate strikes against the group.

“We wanted to defeat those terrorists, while the United States wanted to manage these groups in order to topple the government in Syria”, Assad added.

“The [US President Barack] Obama Administration bears as much responsibility as Assad, perhaps more, for the chaos that has shaken Syria over the last five years”, Johnson said.

Russian Federation has given the Syrian government strong diplomatic and military backing in its fight against rebels, but Mr Putin has said only a political solution can resolve the conflict.

In return, Moscow would limit its strikes to agreed targets and the Syrian air force would halt attacks in certain “designated areas”.

Also speaking in Moscow on July 15, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Kerry and Putin did not discuss possible direct military cooperation in Syria.

Moscow backs the government of Bashar al-Assad, while Washington leads an worldwide coalition against IS and lends support to Syrian rebels.

“Russia has been trying to get the United States to cooperate with its forces since the beginning of Russian involvement in the Syrian conflict”, wrote Stratfor, a US group that tracks global affairs.

“If we can not get to a solution that resolves both of those problems we’re going to be in a very different place, and the reality is that time is short here”, a U.S. official said.

The Washington Post has published what it says is a draft agreement for cooperation between Russian Federation and the US.

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The U.S. has rebuffed Russia’s previous requests for military cooperation, accusing the Russians of using anti-terrorism objectives as a pretext for protecting Assad’s position, of repeatedly violating truces and attacking moderate rebel groups backed by the U.S. or its allies as well as civilian targets. The war began in 2011.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad