No hope for diplomatic settlement in Syria in the nearest future

Al Jazeera
No hope for diplomatic settlement in Syria in the nearest future

The United States has suspended talks with Russia over the war in Syria and accused Moscow of not living up to its commitments under a ceasefire agreement. Moscow and Washington had brokered a previous ceasefire but it collapsed last month after several days of relative calm. After weeks of intense air raids on Aleppo carried out by the Syrian and Russian armies, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the US was "on the verge" of ending talks on Syria with Russia.

The US government released a statement on Monday confirming the suspension of talks. "The United States is suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia that were established to sustain the cessation of hostilities," US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said in the statement. "This is not a decision that was taken lightly." The announcement came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to suspend an agreement with the US on disposing of weapons-grade plutonium, citing "unfriendly acts" by the US.

Russia's foreign ministry said it regretted the US decision to suspend the talks, saying Washington was trying to shift responsibility for a failure to stop the violence onto Moscow. "Washington simply did not fulfil the key condition of the agreement to improve the humanitarian condition around Aleppo," ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. "After failing to fulfil the agreements that they themselves worked out, they are trying to shift responsibility on to someone else".

Zakharova insisted that "in the past few days" Russia had "taken efforts aimed at fulfiling" the ceasefire deal, after it unravelled in acrimony. "It all essentially came down to a simple question - who are Jabhat al-Nusra, who is behind them, and why can't Washington fulfil its promise to divide the terrorists from the so-called moderate opposition," she said, referring to the group now calling itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.  Confirmation that the US-Russian talks on Syria have collapsed suggests there is little hope, if any, of a diplomatic solution to end the five-and-a-half-year-old civil war emerging anytime soon. News of the suspending of talks, however, came as diplomats said the United Nations Security Council would begin to negotiate on Monday a draft resolution that urges Russia and the US to ensure an immediate truce in Aleppo.

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