U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
said on Friday that he planned to discuss combating Islamic State
militants in Syria and what role Iran could play when he meets with his
Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Qatar in coming weeks.
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry speaks to the audience as he discusses the Iran nuclear deal with Council on Foreign Relations President Richard N. Haass at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York July 24, 2015.
Kerry told the Council on Foreign
Relations think tank in New York that "we have to change the dynamic in
Syria" to kill off radical Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate
in swathes of territory it has seized in Syria and Iraq.
"And that's part of why we have been
negotiating with Turkey in these last weeks and now have some shift in
what the Turks are prepared to do, and there is also a shift in some of
the things that we're engaged in," Kerry said, without elaborating.
Turkish warplanes pounded Islamic State
targets in Syria for the first time on Friday, and officials in
Washington have said Turkey has agreed to let U.S. jets launch air
strikes from a base near the Syrian border.
Kerry said he hoped to follow up with Lavrov on previous discussions about Syria.
"We want to bring the Saudis in, we want
to bring the Turks in, and ultimately, probably, we will have to see
what the Iranians are prepared to do," said Kerry.
Russia is trying to bring about
rapprochement between the Syrian government and regional states hostile
to it, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to forge an alliance to fight
Islamic State.
Following a historic accord between
world powers and Iran last week to curb Tehran's nuclear program, Kerry
said, "both (Iranian) President (Hassan) Rouhani and Foreign Minister
(Javad) Zarif have made it clear that with the agreement they are
prepared to discuss the regional issues."
Kerry plans to travel to Doha in the
next couple of weeks to meet with the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is
made up of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait,
Oman and Qatar.
Source: Reuters