U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura says a resumption of the stalled intra-Syrian peace talks is likely to hinge on the outcome of bilateral talks between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, scheduled for Friday. He acknowledged that meetings between Lavrov and Kerry “are going to have an impact, certainly” on United Nations -led initiatives to get that political process back on track.
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, center, arrives for a new round of talks on Syria, in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Aug. 26, 2016.
The most immediate concern of all sides is the need for humanitarian aid for millions of civilians in the besieged city of Aleppo, which has been the focal point of fighting much of the year.
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.
Those goals are not new, but recent developments have made achieving them even more urgent and important, US officials said.
“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.
“We don’t want to have a deal for the sake of the deal”, said Kerry at a joint press conference.
“We’re hopeful that today could see resolution on at least some of them, and that we can move this plan forward, but we’re mindful of the challenges”, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity as the closed-door session began. Numerous efforts in the past to pause the fighting and start a political transition have failed, stymied by Assad’s refusal to leave power, Russian and Iranian support for his regime, and the mingling of moderate and extremist rebel groups fighting him. “That has taken more time frankly, than I thought was needed, I thought everybody would help us make it happen”, Mr. Egeland said, but he was hopeful that humanitarian convoys “can roll” shortly to help the long-suffering people in Aleppo. Kerry said the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has conducted a continued aerial bombardment with barrel bombs and choline gas.
But the U.S. and Russian Federation have a common foe in the Islamic State group. Recent developments include military operations around the city of Aleppo, the entry of Turkey into the ground war, Turkish hostility toward USA -backed Kurdish rebel groups and the presence of American military advisers in widening conflict zones.
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Moscow and Washington will boost their cooperation on resolving the Syrian crisis as they have managed to reduce their mutual mistrust on the conflict in the Arab country, says the Russian foreign minister.
