All news

US should ‘look for every opportunity’ to talk Syria future with Russia — US envoy

If the US fails to understand the problems of the region over the long term then it is going "to be condemned to fight forever"

NEW YORK, November 13. /TASS/. Washington should constantly hold consultations with Moscow on the ways to resolve the crisis in Syria, retired Gen. John Allen, the US special envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS), has told CNN in an interview.

"I think we should look for every opportunity possibly that we can to engage the Russians in the broader conversation about the future of Syria. And that’s what happened just recently in Vienna. It’s going to happen again this weekend," he said.

"The conversation ultimately needs to get us into a diplomatic political track, which includes the Syrians and all of the external players, to talk about how the process of succession will occur in Syria," Allen said.

Speaking on whether the US understands in fact what is going on in the region and why the IS influence is growing, Allen said: "Nobody understands this region better than the people in this region, and by working closely with them to try to get at these underlying conditions, these conditions which ultimately create the emergence of these groups."

If the US fails to understand these problems over the long term then it is going "to be condemned to fight forever," he said.

On October 23, Vienna hosted a four-party meeting (Russia, the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) on resolving the conflict in Syria. On October 30, the discussion on this issue continued in a broader format in the Austrian capital and involved the representatives of 19 countries and international organizations.

The second round of Vienna talks resulted in adopting a document on the principles of resolving the crisis in Syria. A new multilateral meeting on Syria is due to be held in Vienna on Saturday.