The State Department had no details to offer Thursday on whether and how it might be responding to U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura’s urgent plea for the U.S. and Russia to help salvage the disintegrating Syrian peace talks.
De Mistura called for a “U.S.-Russian initiative at the highest level” to help enforce a March truce, according to the Associated Press. Syrian opposition groups have said they can’t enter into a political dialogue while still under attack from Syrian and Russian forces.
Despite that plea, however, State Department spokesman John Kirby said there were no immediate plans to act on de Mistura’s call.
“We absolutely share his concerns about the violence, and where things are going,” Kirby said Thursday. “I don’t have any recent discussion between [Russian] Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Secretary [John Kerry]. They speak frequently, so I would fully expect that there will be a conversation soon regarding Syria.”
Kirby said the State Department is hoping for a reconvening of the International Syrian Support Group (ISSG), the Vienna-based negotiations on Syria that are co-chaired by Russia and the United States. De Mistura also said he would like a new ISSG meeting.
“We believe the ISSG continues to have value,” Kirby said, but he was noncommittal on a date for a new meeting chaired by Russia and the U.S.
“I don’t have a meeting right now on the schedule, but I do think [Kerry] is interested in gathering the ISSG again together,” Kirby said. Kirby added that he hoped the ISSG could eventually “reinvigorate a sense of momentum” in Syria.
“I think we all share the same sense of deep concern and urgency about what’s going on Syria,” Kirby said. “But I don’t have any U.S.-Russia bilateral meetings to announce here today.”
The UN envoy was more categorical about the apparent need for the two powers to get involved to preserve the peace that they brokered.
“There is no reason that both of them [U.S and Russia] — who have been putting so much political capital in that success story and have a common interest in not seeing Syria ending up in another cycle of war — should not be able to revitalize what they created, and which is still alive, but barely,” De Mistura said Wednesday.
“In the last 48 hours, we have had an average of one Syrian killed every 25 minutes, one Syrian wounded every 13 minutes. … How can you have substantial talks when you have only news about bombing and shelling?” he asked.
