US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
The United States is prepared to discuss with Russia joint efforts to stabilize war-torn Syria, including no-fly zones, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday.
He added the United States wanted to discuss with Russia the use of on-the-ground ceasefire observers and the coordinated delivery of humanitarian aid to Syrians.
"If our two countries work together to establish stability on the ground, it will lay a foundation for progress on the settlement of Syria's political future," Tillerson said in a statement ahead of this week's Group of 20 summit in Germany.
The statement made no mention of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's future. The United States largely blames Assad for the six years of civil war and has called on him to step down.
Tillerson also said Russia had an obligation to prevent the use of chemical weapons by Assad's government.
Read more ....
Update #1: US ready to consider Syria ‘no-fly zones’ if Putin and Trump find common ground at G20 meeting (RT)
Update #2: U.S. again offers to cooperate with Russia on Syria (CBS/AP)
WNU Editor: My prediction is that Russia will be taking up this offer. With the collapse of yesterday's Syrian peace talks .... Iran And Turkey Block Russian Proposals On Syrian Safe Zones (July 5, 2017) .... Russian will be looking for alternative options to solve this mess.
7 comments:
You really think it's about religion? Really? It's about power, using religion as a pretext.
Shocking I have to mention such basic things. Guess it's just the dumb modern generation.
WNU editor: the talks didn't "collapse." They just didn't finish the task at hand. Lavrentyev made clear that the work goes on, that the three guarantors agreed to set up a working group on the de-escalation zones which will meet for the first time on Aug. 1 in Tehran. Al Jaafari did blame the Turks for the failure of the meeting to finish the documents on the de-escalation zones but Lavrentyev didn't seem to share Jaafari's view. The Turks, as far as I know, haven't made any comments. It certainly the case that there are differences between the different parties--Damascus doesn't like the Turks, the armed opposition doesn't like the Russians or the Iranians--which increases the difficulties, and there's a long way to go but the Russians are sticking to this path, and de Mistura praised them for doing so. So, to say that the talks collapsed is the wrong characterization.
the Russians suggested that the discussion be held over for the next session. They then took the Americans by surprise by relocating the sixth session of the Astana conference to Tehran. This too was a measure of the conference’s breakdown as a peace forum. US, Jordanian and Syrian rebel opposition groups will never travel to the Iranian capital to negotiate an end to the Syrian war.
By knuckling under to Tehran on this venue, the Russians have shown their hand as supporters of Iran’s military objectives in Syria, which they have hitherto tried to disguise.
The failure of the Astana peace track calls into question the ceasefire declared on Sunday by Damascus on all the warfronts of southeastern Syria, including the battle for Daraa, 1 km from the Jordanian border, and the fighting for the Quneitra region, just 3 km from Israel's Golan. That front was the source of the mortar shells that strayed across the border into the Golan last week.
The ceasefire was supposed to be in effect until midnight on Thursday, June 6, but there is now a possibility that the fighting will resume earlier, perhaps even in the coming hours.
Carl, Fred is right. The location of Tehran for the next round is a no-go. These talks in the current format are dead.
He he, I wonder if you hated the iranians as much when Obama was dealing with them?
anon: not sure who "you" refers to, but as I recall, Obama got a halt to nuke development, a treaty. It is of course true that the folks opposed to Obama presidency said they felt that treaty a disaster, and I believe Trump said at one point he would dump that treaty, though I don't believe he has done this as yet.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/apr/26/obama-iran-nuclear-deal-showing-little-effectivene/
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