The United States and Russia are taking their differences over the conflict in Syria to new heights, after trading ferocious allegations of duplicity and malfeasance at the United Nations Security Council. After a fractious meeting of the council on Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were set to duel again over Syria at a gathering of the roughly 20 nations that have an interest in Syria.
Thursday’s meeting of the International Syria Support Group comes after the two men blamed each other for spoiling the country’s cease-fire that they had agreed to earlier this month. Each has blamed the other for violations. Kerry called for all warplanes to halt flights over aid routes, while Lavrov suggested a possible three-day pause in fighting to get the truce back on track. Thursday’s meeting comes a day after Kerry and Lavrov abandoned diplomatic niceties in a fractious public debate over Syria, blaming each other for the failure of a week-old truce and offering only temporary patches to stem the bloodshed.
In a U.N. Security Council session originally envisioned to enshrine the Sept. 9 truce, world powers rued the possibility of a darker phase in the conflict amid increased attacks on humanitarian workers. The council’s nations all sought to revive the U.S.-Russian cease-fire deal, but once again illustrated why they’ve been unable for more than five years to stop Syria’s civil war.
“Supposedly we all want the same goal. I’ve heard that again and again,” a visibly angry Kerry told the council. “Everybody sits there and says we want a united Syria, secular, respecting the rights of all people, in which the people of Syria can choose their leadership. But we are proving woefully inadequate in our ability to be able to get to the table and have that conversation and make it happen.”
While the U.S. and Russia have previously butted heads over several proposed resolutions critical of the Syrian government, Wednesday’s agenda didn’t even include a suggested course of action. Instead, the two-hour discussion served as a warm-up act for a Thursday meeting blocks away in New York that will include Kerry, Lavrov and their counterparts from more than a dozen European and Arab countries.
