WASHINGTON — Frustrated by months of failure in Syria, the Obama administration is taking what might be its final offer to Moscow: Enhanced intelligence and military cooperation against the Islamic State and other extremist groups if Syria’s Russian-backed president Bashar Assad upholds a cease-fire with U.S.-supported rebel groups and starts a political transition.
When Secretary of State John Kerry meets Russia’s top diplomat and possibly President Vladimir Putin in Moscow later this week, Syria’s civil war and Assad’s future will top the agenda. Kerry is trying to reverse a trend in which he has hailed a series of agreements with the Russians only for them to fall short, according to officials with knowledge of internal American deliberations.
Kerry is making the trip “to try to resuscitate the cessation of hostilities,” and get Russia’s “buy-in on a process that can lead to a nationwide cease-fire,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Wednesday. “We haven’t seen that thus far, but we’re having another go at this.”
Kerry will have to thread a needle. He’s watched the Syrian military and Russian air force violate truce after truce in recent months. This time, the officials said, Kerry is dangling in front of the Kremlin Russia’s long-sought requests for intelligence sharing and targeting assistance in return for Russia using its influence to end the fighting and start ushering Assad out of power. But Kerry will be wary about offering too much.
The talks in Moscow are scheduled fewer than three weeks before an August ultimatum for diplomatic progress.
