Emergency Meeting Between State Department And Putin Held

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin on Friday to hold an emergency meeting about the situation in Syria.  The pair talked for three hours at the Kremlin in an effort to establish “concrete, near-term steps” in their fight against ISIS. The State Department said Kerry expressed concern about repeated violations of a cessation of hostilities by the Moscow-backed Syrian government. It said the two also discussed the need to need to increase pressure on groups like Islamic State and the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. Kerry “emphasized that absent concrete, near-term steps, diplomatic efforts could not continue indefinitely,” a statement said, adding that discussions between Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday were expected to explore initiatives in more detail. On Thursday, the Washington Post published a leaked document it said Kerry would put forward in Moscow calling for intelligence sharing to identify leadership targets, training camps, supply lines and headquarters of the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria. It said strikes against those targets could be carried out by U.S. or Russian jets and expanded coordination would be channelled through a Joint Implementation Group based in the vicinity [...]