Secretary of State John F. Kerry will go to Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war in Syria amid concerns about what Kerry termed “kinks” in an effort to get rebels and opposition groups to negotiate with the Damascus government.
“They will discuss ongoing efforts to achieve a political transition in Syria and related efforts to degrade and destroy ISIL,” said State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner. He referred to the Islamic State, a radical al-Qaeda offshoot also known as ISIL and ISIS.
The pivot to war in the Middle East and Eastern Europe comes as Kerry completes a week of talks in Paris over a climate change accord.
Kerry also plans to raise with Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov the situation in Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists and the government in Kiev are butting up against a self-imposed year-end deadline to end the fighting, Toner said. Kerry met with Putin once before this year, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in May.
