Kerry: US came late to Syrian peace effort
WASHINGTON Ñ The United States came late to efforts to find a political settlement to the war in Syria, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday, as the crisis there deepened with political uncertainty in neighboring Turkey.
Kerry said an international conference Ñ which he and his Russian counterpart proposed in Moscow nearly a month ago Ñ remained the best resolution for ending the fighting, but his remarks carried the implication that the Obama administration had moved too slowly in its first term to seek a negotiated political solution to a conflict that erupted more than two years ago and turned into a war.
“This is a very difficult process, which we come to late,” Kerry said after meeting at the State Department with Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski.
“We are trying to prevent the sectarian violence from dragging Syria down into a complete and total implosion where it has broken up into enclaves, and the institutions of the state have been destroyed, with God knows how many additional refugees and how many innocent people killed,” Kerry said.
The State Department’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Psaki, said Kerry’s remarks had not been intended as a rebuke of the administration’s policy thus far. “It’s not an implied criticism of anyone Ñ more just a recognition that more needs to be done and that’s what we’re focused on,” she said.
His remarks underscored the ferment in the region, including the wave of protests in Turkey against the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Although the protests began over a park project and remained focused on Erdogan’s leadership, the Obama administration sounded alarmed by the prospect that they could distract Turkey’s government from helping manage the crisis in Syria and elsewhere in the region.
“We urge all people involved, those demonstrating and expressing their freedom of expression, and those of the government, to avoid any provocations of violence,” said Kerry, who has already traveled three times to Turkey as secretary. –