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Russia, US coordinate verification of data on Syrian ceasefire violations, says Kerry

US Secretary of State said the two sides were unwilling to engage in public arguments over each such violation

WASHINGTON, March 1. /TASS/. Russia and the U.S. have coordinated the process of verifying date on violations of the Syrian ceasefire, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday.

He said the two sides were unwilling "to litigate in a public fashion" over each such violation and they had elaborated an appropriate process envisioning, among other things, the scrutiny of data on violations of the ceasefire that would be done by Russian and U.S. specialists in Geneva and Amman.

Kerry said he had had a couple of telephone conversations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the previous few days. They agreed that, in spite of reports on violations of the ceasefire by the parties to the conflict, which both the U.S. and Russia were taking very seriously, they would not like to raise public arguments in the media but would rather take steps towards eliminating those instances.

Kerry recalled the U.S. and Russia had placed teams of specialists in Geneva and Amman and they were maintaining contacts with one another and with people in Syria.

"We are going to track down each alleged violation and work even more now to put in place a construct which will help us to guarantee that missions are indeed missions against Nusra or missions against Daesh (al alternative name of the Islamic State terrorist grouping - TASS)," he said.

Kerry also said a special-purpose workgroup for stopping hostilities in Syria had a meeting on Monday and it would hold meetings regularly.

Further agreements pertaining to these efforts that would be signed in the coming few days would serve as additional tests for how the ceasefire accords could be implemented, he said.