US, Russia fail to reach deal on cooperation in Syria

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, addressing a joint news conference after more than nine hours of off-and-on talks in Geneva, said teams from both sides would try to hash out the final details in coming days in the Swiss city. Kerry said the sides had ‘achieved clarity on the path forward’ and that the vast majority of steps toward renewing a February ceasefire and humanitarian plan were completed during the talks. 

“We don’t want to have a deal for the sake of the deal,” Kerry said. “We want to have something done that is effective and that works for the people of Syria, that makes the region more stable and secure, and that brings us to the table here in Geneva to find a political solution.” 

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. 

The main focus of the technical talks has been over how to separate the opposition groups from the jihadis. Lavrov said ‘once and for all’ the groups that were part of a cessation of hostilities agreement had to be delineated. 

“We have completed the vast majority of those technical discussions which were primarily focused on making this cessation real and improving humanitarian assistance and thereby getting the parties to the table so we can have a serious negotiation about how to end this war,” Kerry said.