“It depends on how the talks progress,” a diplomat in Geneva, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor on Aug. 24. “Clearly, both sides want a deal … but there is so much mistrust.”

Earlier, diplomatic sources in Geneva had said that a Kerry-Lavrov meeting was tentatively planned, but that whether one materialized depended on whether there was sufficient progress on Aleppo discussions.

“I would not characterize it is as ‘the brink,’ I would say we have a ways to go,” Trudeau added, when asked if the scheduling of the meeting was a sign a deal was imminent. “We still have issues that need to be resolved. However, we are meeting. We are going to put Secretary Kerry and the foreign minister in a face-to-face [meeting] to try to resolve some of the issues that remain. I don’t know where we will be after this. … We are committed to this … advancing.”

“We want to be very measured in our expectations as we go forward … but we believe this meeting is worth having,” State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told journalists at the State Department on Aug. 24 about the upcoming Kerry-Lavrov meeting in Geneva.

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Aug. 26 to try to finalize a deal on Syria, after an initial US-Russian understanding reached at meetings in Moscow on July 15 was upended by intensified fighting in Aleppo .

Russia said Aug. 18 that it would be willing to consider cease-fires that would last 48 hours for Aleppo on a weekly basis, provided there could be security guarantees that would enable aid to reach both government-held western Aleppo as well as rebel-held eastern Aleppo. But follow-up meetings on how to implement the plan only resumed in Geneva on Aug. 23 and have been complicated, the diplomatic source said.

Kerry, speaking to reporters in Kenya on Aug. 22, said he hoped that meetings between US and Russian technical teams in Geneva this week would make sufficient progress on a plan to expand a cessation of hostilities in Syria nationwide so that a deal could be announced by the end of the month.

“Our team will meet this week, and depending on where those discussions go, it is very possible, even likely, that Foreign Minister Lavrov and I would meet,” Kerry told reporters in Kenya. “But I wouldn’t be surprised, if they are positive and constructive, that we do get together sooner rather than later. And, therefore, it is possible that something could be agreed … upon before the end of the month. … I wouldn’t express optimism; I would express hope.”

“This has to end — this Syrian travesty,” Kerry added. “It has gone on far too long. It has cost too many lives.” A resumption of intra-Syrian political talks “has to be empowered by a legitimate cessation of hostilities and that is what we’re working to achieve,” he added.

Even as Kerry expressed hope that a US-Russia deal on Syria could be finalized this month, the Pentagon pushed back on reports a deal was imminent.

“Contrary to recent claims, we have not finalized plans with Russia on potential coordinated efforts,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told journalists Aug. 22. “Serious issues must first be resolved before we can implement the steps [Kerry and Lavrov] discussed in Moscow last month.”

“We are not there yet, and the regime and Russian’s recent actions only make it harder to consider any potential coordination,” Cook added.

US officials said Russian actions had served to bolster popular support for al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra (recently renamed Jabhat Fatah al-Sham), which played a key role in breaking an attempted Syrian regime besiegement of rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

"The recent escalation in airstrikes and ground fighting in Aleppo is of deep concern to the United States,” a US official, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor on Aug. 23. “The Syrian regime and its allies, Russia and Iran, are driving this escalation that is bringing more suffering to an already deplorable humanitarian crisis and complicates efforts to get Syrian parties to the negotiating table.

“Russia has pledged to focus its military actions against ISIL [Islamic State] and al-Qaeda in Syria. Instead of degrading these terrorist organizations, however, Russia's actions have empowered the Syrian regime — which uses barrel bombs and, reportedly, toxic chemicals, like chlorine, on its own people,” the US official said. “These actions threaten to galvanize popular support for extremists like al-Qaeda, which claim to defend the population suffering under the rule of a brutal dictator and his allies.”

“By intervening militarily in this civil war, Russia assumed enormous responsibility for Syria's future,” the US official said. “It is long past time for Russia to take the necessary steps to reduce violence against civilians, guarantee open access for humanitarian agencies and create conditions conducive for a political transition."

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Kerry and Lavrov spoke by phone Aug. 24. They “discussed the situation in Syria, including in Aleppo … as well as possibilities for coordinating Russian and US efforts to combat terrorism, building on earlier agreements, including the need to draw a clear line between pro-American Syrian opposition groups and terrorist groups using them as cover, and to whom the cease-fire provisions do not apply,” the ministry said in a press release.

The Kerry-Lavrov Geneva discussions “will be the big meeting,” Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat now with the Syrian opposition High Negotiating Committee, told Al-Monitor on Aug. 23.

“Now I think it is very difficult to talk about a cessation of hostilities,” Barabandi said. Rebel gains in Aleppo in recent weeks are “very difficult to use as leverage, because part of them are [Jabhat al-] Nusra, so I don’t see how [Kerry] can leverage that” in his discussions with the Russians, Barabandi said.