Kerry admits Syrian diplomacy at impasse after truce’s end

“We have to call the facts as we see them and describe the situation as the people of Syria are experiencing it”, the official said.

A United Nations aid convoy was due to deliver aid yesterday to besieged areas near Damascus amid fierce fighting after a 48-hour suspension to review security guarantees in the wake of a deadly attack on relief trucks near Aleppo, a United Nations spokesman said.

It was the latest attack on humanitarian workers.

The failure to establish a no-fly zone in the country’s north to protect Syrians from the bombing has been a mistake, according to Graham, and he also criticized the reliance on the Kurdish fighters the USA has been supporting in the fight against the Islamic State. He said a Syrian government role could not be completely ruled out.

Dunford said it “is very difficult” to manage the balance between supporting the Kurds and dealing with the Turkish government’s adamant opposition to that support.

Dunford and Defense Secretary Ash Carter faced Republicans angry that the Obama administration is not taking more aggressive steps to end the 5-year-old-civil war in Syria. Sen.

Republican Senator John McCain, the committee’s chairman, fiercely criticized the possibility of future cooperation and called U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who brokered the ill-fated deal, “delusional” for seeking it.

The top USA general told Congress on Thursday it would be unwise to share intelligence with Russian Federation and stressed that would not be one of the military’s missions if Washington and Moscow were to ever work together against Islamist militants in Syria.

Republicans are skeptical, even hostile, to the idea that Russian Federation is a willing partner for peace and would work with the United States.

Kerry called for all warplanes to halt flights over aid routes and at a U.N. Security Council session he raised “profound doubt” about the willingness of Russian Federation and Syria to abide by the cease-fire. -Russian military partnership against the Islamic State and al-Qaida if violence was reduced and aid delivered over the course of seven continuous days.

The hearing was held at a time when Congress is struggling to agree on a budget to keep the USA government funded, including the Pentagon.

Russian Federation and the Syrian government spurned his plea with warplanes mounting the heaviest air strikes in months against rebel-held districts of the city of Aleppo overnight, burying any hope for the revival of a doomed ceasefire.

Carter and Dunford both disagreed with a Kerry proposal to ground all warplanes.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in an interview with AP News that was broadcast yesterday, said Syria’s war will “drag on” as long as it is part of a global conflict funded and interfered in by other countries.

“Our patience for the current process is far from limitless”, the official said, but added: “I don’t think tonight, and right now as we approaching a climactic stage of this, is the time to say where we will go from here”.