The State Department put on a good face Thursday when asked about reports that the United States has been excluded from secret negotiations over Syria between Russia and Turkey, a key NATO ally.
“We welcome any genuine effort to ease the suffering of the Syrian people, particularly in Aleppo, which has endured so much hardship in recent months,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. “So, I can’t speak to the content of these talks or the substance of these talks or even the reality of these talks, but again we would welcome any effort to ease the suffering and end the fighting.”
Russia is reportedly negotiating with Syrian rebel groups in talks brokered by Turkey, a member of NATO that has had fraught relations with Russia and the U.S. alike in recent months, even as the Secretary of State John Kerry has called for war crimes investigations against Russia — the leading backer of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad — and ended formal bilateral negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.
“The Russians and Turks are talking without the U.S. now,” a Syrian rebel source told the Financial Times. “It [Washington] is completely shut out of these talks, and doesn’t even know what’s going on in Ankara.”
The Turks are reportedly facilitating the possibility of humanitarian aid flowing into the besieged sectors of Aleppo, where U.S.-backed rebel groups and civilians are enduring a regular bombardment pro-Assad forces. Kerry tried to achieve that goal through a separate ceasefire pact, but the deal was broken off after pro-regime forces bombed a UN aid convoy.
“We’ve seen these reports of talks taking place between Russia and Syrian rebels,” Toner said. “I’m going to leave it to the parties involved to confirm these talks and whether they’re actually taking place.”
Russia vetoed another UN resolution to pause the fighting in Aleppo, despite U.S. threats that international punishment might ensue, in addition to the sanctions that Western countries imposed following Putin’s decision to annex Crimea and destabilized eastern Ukraine. “Member states must swiftly consider the other tools we can employ at the U.N. — including through the General Assembly — to apply more effective pressure,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said.
If Russia is negotiating with Turkey behind the back of the U.S., that might defang one of the harshest consequences of an ongoing war in Syria. Turkey is one of the countries that could provide Syrian rebels with the kind of weaponry needed to down Syrian and Russian planes, which Kerry’s team suggested could take place after the ceasefire deal broke down.
“The consequences are that the civil war will continue in Syria, that extremists and extremists groups will continue to exploit the vacuums that are there in Syria to expand their operations, which will include, no question, attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities, and Russia will continue to send troops home in body bags, and they will continue to lose resources — even, perhaps, more aircraft,” State Department spokesman John Kirby predicted in September.
