State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters Monday that a proposed U.S.-Russian conference to form a transitional government in civil-war torn Syria "cannot become a stalling tactic" despite repeated delays of the talks since the plan was announced last year.
"We have long agreed with Russia that a conference in Geneva is the best vehicle for moving towards a political solution. We all agree the talks cannot become a stalling tactic, and Secretary [of State John] Kerry has been very clear on this point with the Russians," Psaki said.
Psaki noted that "senior members" of Kerry’s and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s staffs will meet next week "to continue to make progress on Geneva planning." Although the plan to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and transition to a new government was originally proposed in June 2012, peace talks initially scheduled for May have been pushed back to at least October.
The Washington Free Beacon reported Monday that Russian intransigence, a Syrian opposition divided among more nationalist rebels and foreign jihadists, and Assad’s improved position on the battlefield have made staging the talks virtually impossible, according to experts.
"The administration has been working under the assumption that good faith actions from the American side will be reciprocated by the Russians," Michael Weiss, an analyst of the Syria conflict and editor of The Interpreter, an English-language Russian news site, told the Free Beacon.
"That hasn’t been the case across a range of issues, but none more so than Syria, where Putin delights in repeatedly humiliating Obama’s diplomatic efforts. Unfortunately, it took an NSA contractor with U.S. state secrets receiving sanctuary in Moscow for Obama to realize, or at least acknowledge publicly, that he’s been getting conned for five years."