Lavrov, Kerry hold lengthy talks with Nice terror attack as backdrop

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry held eight hours of intense negotiations on Friday, with this week’s terrorist attack in Nice, France, that killed 84 people as backdrop.

“I think people all over the world are looking to us and waiting for us to find a faster and more tangible way of them feeling that everything that is possible is being done to end this terrorist scourge and to unite the world in the most comprehensive efforts possible to fight back against their nihilistic and depraved approach to life and death,” Kerry said at the start of his meeting with Lavrov.

After holding the marathon round of talks and joining their Russian counterparts at the French Embassy in a tribute to the victims of Thursday’s attack in Nice, the American delegation took a pause for consultations, a Russian Foreign Ministry source told the Tass news agency.

He added that the Russian delegation was holding out hope that the discussions would resume.

Both sides termed Kerry’s talks on Thursday night with Russian President Vladimir Putin as productive and constructive, but Lavrov stressed that many issues still needed to be resolved.

He was referring to the possibility of coordinated airstrikes on the positions of Islamic State and the Al Qaedalinked Jabhat alNusra in Syria, a joint effort that the United States has thus far rejected with the argument that the Kremlin is looking to keep Syrian President Bashar alAssad in power at all costs.

The United States has repeatedly insisted that Assad must be removed from office before Syria’s civil war can be brought to an end.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu on Friday urged the United States to accelerate cooperation with Moscow to normalize the situation in Aleppo, where Jabhat alNusra is under siege by the Syrian army.

He said that over the past three days government forces had suffered numerous casualties in various suicide attacks carried out by the jihadists in Syria’s secondlargest city.

Kerry arrived in Russia his fourth visit in just over a year with an unprecedented proposal: joint U.S.Russian airstrikes on jihadist groups’ positions in Syria.

Under the plan, an Amman, Jordanbased Joint Implementation Group consisting of U.S. and Russian military officials would map out locations with the “concentrated” presence of Jabhat alNusra and designate them for airstrikes by either U.S. or Russia forces, the Washington Post said Thursday.

Other areas in which opposition forces have concentrated “with little or no Jabhat alNusra presence” would be offlimits to airstrikes, according to the paper.

Kerry will meet Monday with European Union foreign ministers and inform them of the results of his talks in the Russian capital.