Kerry Says There Will Be No ‘Fundamental Delay’ in Syria Talks

This is the United Nations’ third attempt to gather interested parties for peace talks.

Turkey maintains that the Democratic Union Party and the People’s Protection Units are subsidiaries of Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is recognized by the United States and Turkey as a terrorist organization.

“When there is a serious potential for a real negotiation, you will see everybody trying, first verbally, rhetorically, secondly militarily to take a better position”, he told CNN on Wednesday. Russia warned that it would respond to any threat to its aircraft, and Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the country’s commanders to act swiftly if Turkish jets violate Syrian airspace.

Diplomats are expressing confidence that Syrian peace talks scheduled to begin in Geneva next week will proceed, though the start could be delayed amid a heated dispute about who will represent the fractured Syrian opposition. The YPG has meanwhile established close ties with the United States, and is an important partner in the fight it is leading against Islamic State in Syria.

He underlined that global coordination is needed against the extremist militants. “They gave the lead to Russian Federation”, he said.

Turkey does not want to see territorial gains by the Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria. “However, a chess player thinks four, maybe five moves ahead and plays accordingly”. Critics say he has therefore chosen to “kick the can down the road” more often than not when faced with making policy decisions that might put him at odds with Russian Federation and Iran. “How that happens will become more clear on that date”.

A delay of one or two days in the start of the talks not be the end of the world, a U.S. State Department spokesman said later on Wednesday in Washington. The Geneva talks, which faced threats of being delayed due to the disagreements over which opposition groups are to be invited, aims to resolve the conflict that has now entered what is almost its fifth year and killed a quarter million people.

“The heads of foreign offices continued their discussion of the Syrian subject, confirming their support for the efforts of UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura to organize negotiations between Syrian Government representatives and opposition forces in Geneva next week to achieve a political settlement”, the ministry said.

Still, Lavrov said, Moscow has not “backed off from our stance regarding the terrorist essence” of Jaish al-Islam, which he accused of shelling “residential districts in Damascus, including the Russian Embassy”, and Ahrar al-Sham, which he called “an offspring of al Qaeda”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Thursday that only three groups are now on the terrorist list: the Islamic State group, al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra and al-Qaida itself.

He laid out a “firmly embedded outline” to the talks in which de Mistura is to shuttle back and forth between delegations and say, “OK, here’s how we envision a cease-fire” to one, and then return to the other side.