[ARA] The United States and Russia agree on "some fundamental principles" for Syria, the U.S. Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
said on Tuesday, adding that he plans to meet again with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday.
"There was agreement that Syria should be a unified country, united, that it needs to be secular, that ISIL (Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
) needs to be taken on, and that there needs to be a managed transition," Kerry told MSNBC, adding that differences remained on what the outcome of such a transition would be.
Speaking in the television interview from New York amid the United Nations
...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly...
gathering this week, Kerry said both U.S. President Barack Obama
Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though....
and Russian President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...are both "looking for a way forward" in Syria, suffering from a four-year civil war as well as the rise of Islamic State.
Kerry described Obama and Putin's meeting on Monday to discuss the crisis as "genuinely constructive, very civil" with "a very candid discussion."
"Everybody understands that Syria is at stake, and the world is looking rapidly for some kind of resolution," Kerry said.
"We are looking for a way to try to get to a point where we can manage a transition and have agreement on the outcome and you could resolve it," he added.
Asked about whether there was an opportunity to use Russia and Iran's influence in Syria to halt Assad's use of barrel bombs on Syrians, he said: "Absolutely."
He added that he raised the issue in meetings with Russia and Iran.
"They are both in the position, in exchange perhaps for something that we might do, they might decide to keep Assad from dropping barrel bombs," Kerry told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.