Russia and the US Have Come to an Agreement on Syria

Russia and the U.S. have unexpectedly agreed to convene an international conference on Syria without unnecessary delay — as early as this month. This was the end result of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Moscow, which concluded yesterday.

Given all the differences Washington and Moscow have experienced on Syria recently from their different sides of the fence, this result looks encouraging. However, the agreement to convene a conference is not quite yet the launch of a political dialogue between the warring Syrian sides, all the more so because many of the Arab sponsors of the Syrian opposition will clearly not be pleased at the prospect of their charges’ reconciliation with Assad or with those around him. And John Kerry did not fail to remind us that he can only vaguely imagine how the current Syrian president could remain in power.

Nevertheless, in the words of Lavrov, “Russia and the U.S. will encourage both the Syrian government and the opposition groups to find a political solution.” And, indeed, the new international meeting on Syria, as agreed by Moscow and Washington, is intended to be a continuation of the Geneva conference held on June 30 last year where it was formally decided to try to begin a process of reconciliation in Syria. It is true that the American, Western and Arab sponsors of the Syrian opposition not only did nothing to start an internal dialogue in Syria but, on the contrary, organized the creation of a “coalition” of opposition forces, who were then recognized as practically the only legitimate representatives of the Syrian people.

But this “coalition” has not met the expectations of the West: Not only has it suffered one defeat after another against Assad’s forces, but it has further and further yielded the Syrian “field” to armed Islamic radicals, who aim to fight with the “international” Islamic terrorists against Assad. It is clear that the U.S., along with its allies in the region Israel and Turkey, does not approve of such radicals coming to power in Syria. So it seems that Washington has decided to return to the track that was declared last year in Geneva.

However, such a metamorphosis on the part of the U.S. is worrying; the change of political direction looks too sharp. This caused them to seek out the presence of a “package” of collusion between Moscow and Washington, in which the U.S. agreement to launch a peace process in Syria was given in exchange for concessions from Russia on some other issues on the bilateral agenda. But this, we must repeat, is just speculation. The reality is that the prospects of dialogue within Syria after the agreements in Moscow became more likely, if only a little.

The Western press has also begun to consider the results of John Kerry’s visit to Moscow.

In Moscow, the U.S. and Russia agreed to renew efforts to bring the warring sides in Syria to the negotiating table, writes The Wall Street Journal. Secretary of State Kerry attempted to ease tensions with one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s most influential backers. However, according to the publication, in a joint appearance Tuesday, neither Mr. Kerry nor Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave any indication of why the new efforts would be more successful than past attempts, all of which have failed.

Recently, notes The New York Times, the Obama administration has faced increasing calls to intervene in the conflict with lethal military aid to the insurgency or perhaps stronger action like the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Syria to protect rebel-held areas. The effort to seek a negotiated solution with the Russians suggests that the administration wanted to first make a public push toward diplomacy, explains the publication. The Russian government has signaled that it is not necessarily bound to Mr. Assad’s political survival as part of a solution. It was especially reinforced that Russia is “not interested in the fate of certain persons,” in the words of Sergei Lavrov. “We are interested in the fate of the total Syrian people.”

The U.S. and Russian diplomats were vague on the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, writes The Washington Post. The agreement suggests that support for Assad on the Russian side has weakened. Obama is weighing whether to increase U.S. intervention in the Syrian conflict with arms — a step that could be avoided if the new diplomatic initiative between Russia and the U.S. is successful, says the article.

Meanwhile, the special representative of the U.N. and the Arab League on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, welcomed the joint decision of Russia and the U.S. to use every opportunity to bring the opposition and the Syrian government to the negotiating table. “This is the first hopeful news concerning that unhappy country in a very long time … the statements made in Moscow constitute a very significant first step forward. It is nevertheless only a first step.”

The foreign minister of Germany, Guido Westerwelle, also welcomed the Russian-American initiatives for an international conference on Syria. “This can be an important step in creating the foundations for a political solution to the conflict in Syria. It is crucial that all parties in the conflict accept a political process,” said Westerwelle. The head of the German Foreign Ministry reinforced that the joint decision of Moscow and Washington was a “strong signal to all to end the violence.”

Apart from Syria, of course, the two sides discussed other international problems and issues of bilateral relations in Moscow. Kommersant writes that one of the key aims of the visit was to prepare for a meeting scheduled in June between the presidents of the U.S. and the Russian Federation, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. In Moscow and in Washington it is hoped that this meeting will be more productive than that of last year. According to the publication, there are five documents in the final stages of agreement that may lie on the presidents’ table — on confidence-building measures in cyberspace, on cooperation in the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, on the war on terror, on the strengthening of economic relations and inter-parliamentary contacts.

However, Russian and American sources familiar with the course of negotiations have not excluded the possibility that the parties may not have time to agree on some of these issues before June and that they will be included on the agenda of the September meeting between Putin and Obama in St. Petersburg. The U.S. is hoping that before September, Moscow and Washington will reach a consensus on the most important issues on the bilateral agenda: problems of missile defense and the reduction of nuclear arsenals. According to one source from the U.S. Department of State, Barack Obama expressed this hope in a letter given to Vladimir Putin by Obama’s adviser Tom Donilon. Yesterday, the Russian president promised that he would respond to it as soon as possible.