US-Russian negotiations on a Syrian peace plan reached a critical moment in Geneva on Friday night as diplomats wrestled with details of a proposed ceasefire.



The Russian foreign minister told journalists that the talks had been paused for several hours while his US counterpart, John Kerry, consulted with Washington.

“It’s going to be announced very soon, I think. I hope before Washington goes to sleep. My appeal to you is to be patient. Same as me,” Sergei Lavrov said.



The negotiating session in a Geneva lakeside hotel was the fourth meeting between the two men in two weeks, in an atmosphere US officials described as “businesslike”.

But it was clear that the sort of progress state department officials had previously insisted was essential for Kerry to make the trip from Washington had failed to materialise, while the Syrian regime made military gains at high civilian cost around the besieged city of Aleppo.



“All I can say is we can’t guarantee in any way at this point that we are on the cusp of finishing. This is an iterative process. It is highly technical,” a senior administration official told reporters on the plane to Switzerland. “And there are a number of areas that we’re going to continue to have to discuss with the Russians tomorrow and potentially beyond tomorrow.”

The peace plan on the table focuses first on achieving a ceasefire in Aleppo and opening up routes for humanitarian relief to reach the city, and then a widening of the truce with an end to regime airstrikes, and a joint US-Russian air campaign against al-Qaida-linked extremists.

Since the current series of ceasefire talks with Lavrov began, a US official said that Kerry had made clear “Aleppo would have to be resolved before we move forward” with the wider ceasefire.

Even as Kerry and Lavrov met in Geneva, however, reports came in of a regime offensive in Aleppo, recapturing a strategically important district in the southern suburbs and bombing encircled eastern neighbourhoods, where 250,000 people are cut off. Civil society groups in the city said that barrel bombs dropped by helicopter on Friday had killed at least nine people, including four children.

Meanwhile, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebel shelling of a government-held district in the frontline Salah al-Din district had killed at least eight people, four of whom were children.

On the night flight from Washington to Geneva, Kerry’s aides were asked repeatedly by reporters whether he was allowing the Russians to play for time while Moscow’s ally in Damascus made military gains.

“We need to get moving close, very close to a deal, and then at some point we need to reach that deal,” one senior official said. “We need to see a situation where it’s clear from whatever is being agreed with the Russians that there will not be a siege of Aleppo. And if we conclude that we can get there, we’ll keep going. If we conclude that it’s just a waste of time and that … it’s being dragged on for no other purpose than to gain time, then there’ll be no purpose for us to [continue].”

The state department had previously insisted Kerry would not return to Geneva until there was a breakthrough on the last points. By Thursday afternoon, that had still not materialised but the secretary of state decided there was a better chance of progress face-to-face with Lavrov in Switzerland than staying in Washington.

A senior official said: “We got to the point where we thought it would be useful for them to sit down again, so we decided to get on a plane and go to Geneva.”

Another official suggested that one of the reasons that Kerry had returned to Geneva despite misgivings was that Syrian opposition groups had urged him to make the last-ditch effort.

“They want us to try,” the official said. “So that’s why we’re trying. And if we reach a deal, then that’s great; and if we don’t, we’re not going to go on forever for the sake of pursuing a deal.”

Moscow and Washington agree that progress has been made over the past fortnight, with several elements of the plan settled and taken off the table, but the state department has repeatedly said this week that there are a few “technical issues” that remained unresolved before Kerry’s return to Geneva.

One of those involved the delineation of territory held by the Front for the Conquest of Syria (Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), formerly the al-Qaida affiliate known as the Nusra Front. Both Washington and Moscow see the group as irreconcilable terrorists and have agreed to coordinate airstrikes against it, but the US is anxious to prevent the Russians from using the joint campaign as a pretext to bomb other anti-regime groups.