VIENNA—The top diplomats from Russia, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will hold talks on the war in Syria Friday, after Moscow thrust itself into the heart of the conflict with its bombing campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
The envoys from Washington, Riyadh and Ankara—all of which back groups battling against Assad—will look to sound out Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Vienna after the embattled Syrian strongman made a surprise visit to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin this week.
On September 30 Russia launched air strikes in Syria THAT have shifted the dynamics of the brutal four-and-a-half year war—allowing Assad’s battle-weary forces to go on the offensive and overshadowing a US-led coalition bombing the Islamic State group.
The US and its regional allies have decried Russia’s strikes, insisting Moscow is not mainly targeting Islamic State as it claims, but other groups battling the regime in Damascus, and that the Kremlin’s intervention will only prolong the fighting.
US Secretary of State John Kerry geared up for a one-on-one with Sergei Lavrov by meeting Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and Turkish counterpart Feridun Sinirlioglu on Friday morning. The four are then set to meet together later.
Ahead of the talks in the Austrian capital, Assad’s fate remains a major stumbling block and, after years of failure to stop the bloodshed in Syria, there was scant hope of any major breakthrough.
Washington and its regional allies have long insisted Assad has to go for there to be any chance of a political solution to fighting that has cost more than 250,000 lives, but Moscow says it must first help him defeat IS and other “terrorists” before talks can start on any reforms.
“The aim of the US is to get rid of Assad, probably that is so, our aim is to defeat terrorism, to battle terror, and to help President Assad claim victory over terror,” Putin said Thursday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
“In this way, we can then create the conditions for the start and, I hope the successful reaching of a conclusion, of the political process to find a settlement.”
Meanwhile, Kerry said in Berlin that while all sides agreed on the need to find a political solution and battle IS only “one thing stands in the way… a person called Assad—Bashar al-Assad”.
Assad’s surprise visit to Moscow on Tuesday — his first known trip abroad since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011 — has now placed the Kremlin as the key link to the strongman.