At
stake are thousands of lives and the fate of a feeble peace process
essential to the fight against the Islamic State group, and Secretary of
State John Kerry has appealed once more to his Russian
counterpart for
assistance in containing and reducing the violence, particularly around
city of Aleppo.
Kerry
spoke at length on Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
to that end, and had been hoping to meet with Lavrov soon, according to
U.S. officials. Kerry was scheduled to arrive in Switzerland late Sunday
for talks with U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura, Saudi Foreign Minister
Adel al-Jubeir and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, and planned
to return to Washington on Monday.
But
Lavrov was not expected to be in Geneva, complicating Kerry's efforts
to make the case directly to the Russians for more pressure on their
Syrian government allies to stop or at least limit attacks in Aleppo. The
State Department said Kerry, in his meetings, would "review ongoing
efforts to reaffirm the cessation of hostilities nationwide in Syria,
obtain the full humanitarian access to which the Syrian government
committed and support a political transition."
Specific,
viable options to achieve those broad goals are limited, and Friday's
announcement of a new, partial cease-fire that does not include Aleppo
underscored the difficulty Kerry faced.
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