After meeting off-and-on for nearly 10 hours in Geneva on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov could point to only incremental progress in filling in details of a broad understanding to boost joint efforts that was reached last month in Moscow.
Their failure to reach an overall deal highlighted the increasingly complex situation on the ground in Syria, including new Russian-backed Assad regime’s attacks on opposition forces and Darayya’s emptying were not covered by the truce - as well as deep divisions and mistrust dividing Washington and Moscow.
The complexities have also grown with the increasing internationalization of what has largely become a proxy war between regional and world powers, highlighted by a move by Turkish troops across the Syrian border against ISIS this week.
Kerry said he and Lavrov had agreed on the "vast majority" of technical discussions on steps to reinstate a ceasefire and improve humanitarian access. But critical sticking points remain unresolved and experts will remain in Geneva with an eye toward finalizing those in the coming days, he said.
"We are close," Kerry said. "But we are not going to rush to an agreement until it satisfies fully the needs of the Syrian people."
Lavrov echoed that, saying "we still need to finalize a few issues" and pointed to the need to separate fighters from the al-Nusra Front from U.S.-backed fighters who hold parts of northwest Syria.
"We have continued our efforts to reduce the areas where we lack understanding and trust, which is an achievement," Lavrov said. "The mutual trust is growing with every meeting."
Yet, it was clear that neither side believes an overall agreement is imminent or even achievable after numerous previous disappointments shattered a brief period of relative calm earlier this year.
The inability to wrest an agreement between Russia and the U.S. - as the major sponsors of the opposing sides in the stalled Syria peace talks - all but spells another missed deadline for the U.N. Syria envoy to get the Assad regime and opposition back to the table.
The U.N. envoy, Staffan de Mistura, briefly sat in Friday with Kerry and Lavrov. After missing an initial target date of Aug. 1, de Mistura had hoped to restart the intra-Syrian discussions toward political transition in late August. He suspended the talks in late April after a resurgence in the fighting.
Friday’s meeting came a month after the Kerry and Lavrov met in Moscow and agreed on a number of unspecified actions to get the all-but-ignored truce back in force. However, as in Moscow, neither Kerry nor Lavrov would describe them in detail.
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