Secretary of State John Kerry insisted Friday that the Syria peace talks have not failed or stalled, but were simply paused to see if Russia will live up to its commitments to stop the bombing in Syria and provide humanitarian access.
Kerry said U.S. officials are engaging with the Russians in order to determine whether Moscow will stop its indiscriminate bombing campaign in Syria and its shelling of civilian areas long enough for the peace talks to proceed.
“But it’s not going to stop just by whining about it,” he said during a press conference with Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos in Washington. “It’s not going to stop by walking away from the table and not engaging.”
He and other U.S. officials are pushing Russia and Syrian dictator Bashar Assad to live up to U.N. Security Council resolution 2254, which Moscow voted to support in December. That resolution stipulated that peace talks wouldn’t begin until all parties agree to provide humanitarian access for suffering Syrian civilians and stop further bombing, especially when it comes to attacks on civilians.
Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed to hold a meeting of parties on both sides of Syria’s civil war in Munich Feb. 11.
“We will know within the next few days who is serious and who is not,” Kerry said.
If the Russians are just agreeing to the talks as a way to delay any further U.S. and other international support for the Syrian opposition, the entire world will know their intentions over the next few days, he said.
“If it’s an effort to simply game the system, then as I have said from day one, the war will not end under those circumstances,” Kerry said. “… There will be more terrorists created, more violence and it will be even harder to hold Syria whole and united as a country.”
One day after United Nation countries pledged a record $10 billion in humanitarian aide for Syria at a conference in London, Syrian opposition leaders said they need more protection, not just more aid and pledges.
“If the international community is serious about ending this conflict, the latest escalation by the Assad regime and Russia must be met with concrete steps to stop raining bombs on civilians and guarantee unfettered humanitarian access,” said Salem Al-Meslet, the spokesman for the High Negotiations Committee, the main Syrian opposition group.
As leaders met in London to seek humanitarian aid contributions, civilians in Aleppo and the surrounding area were being crushed by relentless bombing, he said.
On Thursday alone, more than 35 civilians were killed, including three children, and at least 40,000 civilians fled the area as a result.
