JAKARTA, Indonesia—United States Secretary of State John Kerry is accusing Syrian President Bashar Assad of stonewalling in peace talks and is calling on Russia to push its ally to negotiate with opposition leaders.
United States Secretary of State John Kerry looks out at Lake Geneva outside his meeting room in Montreux, Switzerland Wednesday Jan. 22, 2014. AP.
Kerry says Assad’s team “refused to open up one moment of discussion” during meetings last week in Geneva, which ended with no progress toward breaking the impasse in the nearly three-year-old conflict in Syria.
Kerry says Assad is “trying to win this on the battlefield instead of coming to the negotiating table.”
The top U.S. diplomat is asking Russia to “be a part of the solution.” He says Russia must stop contributing so many weapons and so much aid to the Assad regime, which he says has allowed Assad to “double down” in his fight against the rebels.
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