SECRETARY KERRY: Well, Sergey, good evening.
Good evening to all of you.
Thank you very much for your patience.
I know it’s been a very long day.
It’s been a long day for us too.
I’m particularly grateful, Sergey, for your comments and your hospitality, and my sincere
thanks to you and President Putin for welcoming me back to Moscow, and thank you for some
very candid conversations as you described.
And I thank President Putin for the significant time that he shared with me last night.
I think we were there till about 1 in the morning covering many bases but particularly
focusing, of course, on Syria.
We also talked about issues of enormous concern to the world, issues which are challenging
countries and leaders in many parts of the world.
And we were reminded in very stark and painful terms of one of those issues last night when
we learned of the horrific attack in Nice.
And I join with Sergey, as I did this afternoon when we were privileged to go over to the
embassy here in Moscow, the French embassy, put some flowers on a makeshift memorial and
have an opportunity to write condolences in the book.
And both of us join in extending our deepest condolences to the families and to the friends
of those killed.
I know there were a couple of Americans.
My hearts go out particularly to their family and their friends, and we wish a very speedy
recovery to those who were injured, and there were many of them.
No doubt yesterday had a special irony for me because I had the privilege in the morning
of standing alongside President Hollande in Paris and the privilege of marking Bastille
Day, the national day of France.
How profoundly shocking to see a day of national celebration turned into a night of horror
and of mourning.
Our countries – I know from my conversations with President Putin yesterday and Sergey
Lavrov today – we will continue to stand together in this time of tragedy, and we will
stand with France in our shared fight against violent extremism worldwide.
And I know we will do everything in our power to support the French people at this time
– another tragedy yet again for France.
What is certain is that none of us will ever be intimidated by the forces that seek to
divide and terrorize nations.
No act of terror can shake the bonds of friendship between the United States and France nor undermine
the values that join us together as allies and partners, the very values that we celebrated
on Bastille Day – liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Now, it is inescapable that these horrendous attacks the night before I began my conversations
with President Putin and here today with Sergey Lavrov underscored the degree to which making
progress against terrorists and resolving the conflict in Syria particularly is absolutely
critical.
So we met here in Moscow over these last hours because, as everyone knows, the cessation
of hostilities has come under huge stress in recent months and still in Syria too many
innocent people are dying.
Too many terrorists are waging war against civilization itself.
On the first hand, the Assad regime has relentlessly continued indiscriminate attacks contrary
to the agreements of the ISSG and the UN Security Council.
But on the other side, the terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusrah, the al-Qaida branch in Syria,
has also launched its own offensives, sometimes with members of different oppositions joining
with them.
And the result has been a cycle of excuses for continuing to fight each other, with a
steady deterioration of a hard-fought-for cessation of hostilities in the process.
And that has resulted in the killing of civilians, more refugees, more displaced persons, more
radicalization, more terrorism, and ultimately an increasing sense of hopelessness among
the people of Syria.
Russia and the United States have come together with the belief, as Sergey expressed, that
when Russia and the United States put their mind to it and try deliberately and with purpose
to have an impact on an issue – as we did on chemical weapons in Syria, as we did with
respect to the Joint Plan of Action for Iran, as we did in passing a monumental initiative
in Paris on climate change – when we come together with that purpose, we have an ability
to make a difference.
And so we came together here and we have agreed to steps that, if implemented in good faith,
can address two serious problems that I’ve just described about the cessation.
It is possible to help restore the cessation of hostilities, significantly reduce the violence,
and help create the space for a genuine and credible political transition.
Now, the concrete steps that we’ve agreed on are not going to be laid out in public
in some long list because we want them to work and because they need more work in order
to work.
I want to emphasize, though, they are not based on trust.
They defined specific, sequential responsibilities all parties to the conflict must assume with
the intent of stopping altogether the indiscriminate bombing of the Assad regime and stepping up
our efforts against al-Nusrah.
Now, there are further steps that we need to work on.
We both accepted that responsibility.
In order to implement this approach, our teams will need to meet and work through some details.
Each of us know exactly what we have to do.
And I know and Sergey knows that there are spoilers who will make every effort to try
to disrupt this initiative, and we also know – and this is important – the results
will not be tomorrow or the next day.
They will not be immediate.
But our patience also is not limitless.
International efforts have failed the Syrian people for far too long.
We know that.
After five years of war, the people of Syria don’t want words.
They want action and they deeply want to be able to live in peace.
We, of course, took every effort over the course of the last hours – many hours – focusing
on how to try to make this real.
And we believe the best way to make it real is to go about a quiet business which is the
prerequisite of being able to implement the things that we think should be implemented.
Now, as Sergey related to you, we had a very, very full agenda.
We discussed almost every other issue of concern, from bilateral relationship to Ukraine, implementation
of Minsk; Yemen, Middle East peace, as Sergey described; Libya, and so forth.
And we talked specifically further about Nagorno-Karabakh, where we have both been involved as members
of the Minsk – as the co-chairs of Minsk.
Together with our French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault we are working on that issue, and
I appreciate President Putin’s leadership and I appreciate Sergey’s initiative in
visiting the capitals and working with the presidents.
I had the privilege of meeting with both presidents in Warsaw just the other day, and we are deeply
encouraging – all of us – of an effort to move away from war and move towards the
potential of peace for a long, long-frozen conflict.
Just last month, President Putin met with the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia in St.
Petersburg, and when I saw them in Warsaw, they were grateful for that and they talked
further about ways we might try to go forward.
It is clearly in everyone’s interest to avoid a new outbreak of fighting, and I am
confident that with Russian, American, and French support, the potential for progress
is there.
Foreign Minister Lavrov and I will continue to consult on this issue, and we’ll remain
in regular contact with both presidents in order to try to encourage a peaceful and a
permanent solution.
In closing, I just want to remind everyone that yesterday marked one year since the United
States, Russia, China, and our partners in Europe finalized an agreement that blocks
Iran’s potential pathways to building a nuclear weapon.
And that was an agreement that we can proudly say has made the world a safer place.
Reaching that agreement required cooperation, coordination, and a consistent commitment
by both of our nations – Russia and the United States, and the others – to diplomacy,
to nonproliferation, and to a future that is less dangerous and more secure and more
peaceful.
It is absolutely in that spirit that we have come together in Moscow today, and it is in
that spirit that we strive to replicate our efforts in confronting the crises in Syria,
Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh, and elsewhere.
And so with that, again, I thank my host, Sergey Lavrov, and we’d be happy to take
a question, or questions.
I’m not sure how it’s working.