US Secretary of State John Kerry met today with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a bid to ease badly strained relations over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, but the tone ahead of the meeting didn’t augur well for a breakthrough on any of the many issues dividing the two powers.
On his first trip to Russia since the Ukraine crisis began, Kerry held more than four hours of talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a hotel in the Black Sea resort of Sochi before seeing Putin at his presidential residence in the city. Putin is in Sochi meeting with Russian defense officials for a week.
The top US diplomat plans to test Putin’s willingness to make pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine comply with an increasingly fragile ceasefire agreement, according to US officials travelling with him.
Kerry will also seek to gauge the status of Russia’s support for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose forces have been losing ground to rebels, and press Moscow to support a political transition that could end that war, the officials said.
In addition, Kerry will make the case to Putin that Russia should not proceed with its planned transfer of an advanced air defense system to Iran.
Kerry’s trip comes at a time when relations between Washington and Moscow have plummeted to post-Cold War lows amid the disagreements over Ukraine and Syria.
In a sign of the considerable strains, the Kremlin would not confirm Kerry’s meeting with Putin until just an hour before he arrived in Sochi, a full day after US officials had announced it. And Russia’s Foreign Ministry had previewed the talks by blaming Washington for the breakdown in relations.
Putin’s spokesman welcomed Kerry’s decision to travel to Russia but with a point. “We have repeatedly stated at various levels and the president has said that Russia never initiated the freeze in relations and we are always open for displays of political will for a broader dialogue,” Dmitry Peskov told journalists in Sochi.
The rhetoric signaled there would be few breakthroughs if any on the many issues dividing the US and Russia.
Nevertheless, both sides stressed the importance of trying to work through some of the rancor that buried President Barack Obama’s first-term effort to “reset” ties with Moscow.
Kerry began his short visit to Sochi by laying a wreath at a World War II memorial with Lavrov, with whom Kerry has had a warm personal relationship despite tensions over policy.