The United States is ready to conduct military-to-military talks with Russia regarding its increased activity in Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday.
"The president believes that a mil-to-mil conversation is an important next step, and I think, hopefully, will take place very shortly," Kerry said Friday, according to the New York Times.
Later, the Pentagon announced in a statement that Defense Secretary Ash Carter spoke via phone to Russian minister of defense Sergei K. Shoigu and that the two agreed to discussions of "mechanisms for deconfliction" in Syria.
The news comes after Kerry placed three phone calls in 10 days to his counterpart in Russia to clarify Moscow’s increased military activity in Syria. Despite U.S. warning, Russia has been flying troops and equipment to an area near the port city of Latakia in Syria, where Moscow appears to be constructing a military base.
While Russia has remained a supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the White House has stood on the side of Syrian rebels fighting the regime in the civil war there.
Kerry explained Friday that the talks will help "define some of the different options that are available to us as we consider next steps in Syria." He insisted that the Obama administration’s goals in Syria will remain the same, namely to defeat the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIL or ISIS) and achieve a political solution to the civil war.
However, Kerry’s statement seemed to allow for Assad to continue to remain in power in Syria for some time.
"Our focus remains on destroying ISIL and also on a political settlement with respect to Syria, which we believe cannot be achieved with the long-term presence of Assad," Kerry said. "But we’re looking for ways in which to try to find a common ground. Clearly, if you’re going to have a political settlement, which we’ve always argued is the best and only way to resolve Syria, you need to have conversations with people, and you need to find a common ground."
The U.S. strategy toward IS in Syria was dealt a blow this week when the top military commander of Middle East operations admitted that only four or five Syrian rebels trained in the Pentagon program to combat the Islamic State are still fighting the terrorist group in the region.
On Thursday, it was reported that the Pentagon plans to overhaul its effort to train the rebels to fight IS, an effective acknowledgement by the Obama administration that the $500 million program has not worked.
However, the White House is laying blame for the failed program not on President Obama but instead on Republican lawmakers, former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and others who recommended the commander in chief train the Syrian rebels, the New York Times reported.