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John Kerry Meets Putin In Moscow
15 July 2016
EIRNS—U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin last evening, in a long session lasting past midnight. There are no reports that they discussed the 8-page plan for military cooperation in Syria that Kerry reportedly brought with him. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters this morning, that "They discussed different cooperation formats, but the topic of direct cooperation between the military in combating terrorism in Syria was not mentioned." The State Department read-out afterwards, was confined to generalities about the Kerry-Putin talks on Syria, noting that the meeting was to reduce hostilities, and to enable talks to resume on a transition of government. The read-out stated that Kerry spoke of violations of cessation of hostilities by the Assad government, and the need to increase impact on terrorist groups; and that Kerry also, "emphasized that absent concrete, near-term steps, diplomatic efforts could not continue indefinitely." They also discussed Ukraine, about which Kerry said that while there’s still "homework" to do, "there is a possibility out of that conversation of actually making some further progress that would be extremely helpful for all of us." |
