The United States and Russian Federation say they have completed most of the technical discussions on reaching an agreement in principle on a ceasefire in Syria and are now focused on “making the cessation of hostilies real”.
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Following talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, Kerry said there are still “a few narrow issues to be resolved” before a lasting accord can be reached.
The two diplomats met on and off for almost 12 hours and were briefly joined by the United Nations envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, who had said Thursday hoped the talks would help his drive to revive the stalled negotiations.
“Today I can say that we achieved clarity on the path forward”, Kerry told press late Friday evening.
“We’re very focused obviously on the cessation of hostilities, yes, on wide humanitarian access, yes, creating the grounds for a political solution”, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said Thursday.
The Kerry-Lavrov meeting came as Syrian government forces were finally able to capture the rebel-held town of Darayya near the capital Damascus after a four-year siege forced the Islamist militia there to withdraw under an agreement reached with President Bashar Al Assad.
The talks have been complicated in part by a significant offensive in the southern part of the divided city of Aleppo led by some US -backed opposition groups that are intermingled with the group formerly known as al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria that is also involved in the fight against President Bashar al-Assad.
Mr. Kerry said earlier this week that technical teams were nearing the end of discussions but it was unclear if the powers would complete things. Numerous efforts in the past to pause the fighting and start a political transition have failed, stymied by al-Assad’s continued campaign against the rebels, Russian and Iranian air and ground support, and the moderate and extremist rebel groups fighting him.
The talks both centered on the possibility of a 48-hour ceasefire in Aleppo to allow more humanitarian aid into the area and weeks of efforts to come up with some sort of deal on joint military operations against the Nusra Front, though the United States seems to be souring on that idea.
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 U.S. and Gulf Arab countries, from the jihadis.
Kerry said that Syrians benefited from the calm following the February accord, but that the gains were lost again when violations of the agreement began. “The Obama administration correctly perceives this as the last best chance to ease the killing during this administration and are therefore willing to swallow a bitter pill and get more on-board with the Russian initiative than they would have liked to in an ideal world”.
Rebels and Syria’s army agreed the plan on Thursday to evacuate all the 4,000 residents and some 700 insurgents from Daraya in the coming days, ending one of the longest stand-offs in the civil war.
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”.
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