U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was looking to strengthen ties with Russia as he tries to put an end to the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, but instead he was met with the coldest of receptions.Russian President Vladimir Putin kept Kerry waiting three hours before their meeting at the Kremlin on Tuesday and continuously fiddled with his pen as the top American diplomat spoke about the ongoing crisis in Syria.
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Putin, however, made no mention in his own public remarks of the conflict in Syria, which has generated some of the frostiest exchanges between Washington and Moscow since the Cold War. Yet with the killing now in a third year and no end in sight as U.N. intervention remains stymied by international arguments, Kerry struck a positive tone as he set about trying to narrow differences sufficiently to agree a plan for a settlement that proved out of reach at talks in Geneva almost a year ago.
'The United States believes that we share some very significant common interests with respect to Syria - stability in the region, not having extremists creating problems throughout the region and elsewhere,' Kerry told Putin.
'We have both embraced in the Geneva communiqué a common approach, so it's my hope that today we'll be able to dig in to that a little bit and see if we can find common ground.'