The US, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia met on Friday to explore a political solution to the Syrian civil war despite the basic US-Russian disagreement over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fate.
Speaking in Berlin on Thursday, Kerry said Assad himself was the central obstacle to resolving a conflict that has driven an estimated four million refugees into Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.“One thing stands in the way of being able to rapidly move to implement that, and it’s a person called Assad - Bashar al-Assad,” Kerry told reporters before he held talks with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
For his part, Steinmeier suggested the US and Russia were still far apart. “We all know that ultimately the first steps into political solutions depend on whether Washington and Moscow find bridges towards each other,” he said.