The Obama administration said late Thursday that its patience with Russia has just about worn out, and that it’s close to giving up on the Syria peace process entirely unless Russia is prepared to take “extraordinary” efforts to end all military action in the war-torn country.
Senior State Department officials told reporters that the U.S. side is feeling “frustration” after a week that has seen Russia fail to work with Syria to end the conflict in order to begin political negotiations. The first humanitarian convoy that tried to reach victims of the civil war was bombed on Monday, and even as the U.S. and Russia were meeting later in the week, Syria continued to shell Aleppo.
Those events happened just days into what the U.S. hoped was a cessation of violence that could, if it lasted long enough, lead to more U.S.-Russia coordination in the fight against the Islamic State.
State Department officials laid the blame entirely on Russia, which they said is “responsible” for the ongoing violence either because it is carrying out that violence, or it is not helping to stop Syria’s “regime” from attacking moderate Syrian groups.
“Getting things back on track is going to require extraordinary steps by the Russians and the regime,” one official told reporters. “If the Russians come back to us with something significant and something serious, we will be ready to listen.
“But again, I want to stress at this point that it’s going to require something extraordinary beyond the types of things that have been agreed in the past, and that we are not sure at this point whether they are ready and willing to take those kinds of steps,” the official said.
The official added that parties to the meetings that have taken place in New York all week are starting to sense that the U.S. is frustrated and preparing to walk away.
“They were picking up on the frustration that we feel and that the secretary has exhibited that you’ve seen over the last couple of days, and that we’re ready to turn away from this process,” the official said.
Speaking in New York, Secretary of State John Kerry echoed that idea and said it’s time for Russia to take real steps, or the U.S. would be ready to move on.
“Russia and the regime must do their part, or this will have no chance,” Kerry said. “The question now is whether there remains any real chance of moving forward, because it’s clear we cannot continue on the same path any longer.”
When it comes to next steps, however, it’s not clear what other options exist. The senior official said given the state of the situation, now is not “the time to say where we will go from here.”
Kerry was set to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Friday, but senior officials said there were no other meetings planned as of late Thursday.
In the meantime, congressional critics of the effort, who have always doubted that Russia was finally ready to stop fighting in Syria but have also criticized the Obama administration, were declaring the cease-fire effort dead.
“I am saddened for the people of Syria who are being murdered by barrel bombs, chemical weapons, and other munitions, and are being tortured and deprived of basic necessities,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn. “This was always to be the outcome of negotiations since Russia has known all along that there was nothing to back up empty words from the United States.”
This story was corrected to add Corker’s correct quote.
