SECRETARY KERRY: So thank you all for tremendous patience during the course of a very long
day which obviously has required a lot of detail work, and we appreciate everybody’s
patience in hanging in there.
Today, the United States and Russia are announcing a plan which we hope will reduce violence,
ease suffering, and resume movement towards a negotiated peace and a political transition
in Syria.
And we believe that the plan as it is set forth – if implemented, if followed – has
the ability to provide a turning point, a moment of change.
The suffering that we have witnessed in Syria over the course of more than five years now
is really beyond inhumane.
People have all seen the pictures – women, children tortured; barrel bombs, gas.
And the world has been shocked on a constant basis by what we have witnessed.
And we are – I say “we” – the Obama Administration, the United States is going
the extra mile here because we believe that Russia and my colleague have the capability
to press the Assad regime to stop this conflict and to come to the table and make peace.
Working together, Russia and the United States and our teams have devised what we think is
a more proscriptive and far-reaching approach than we have been able to put together to
date.
And if – and I again want to emphasize the “if” – if the plan is implemented in
good faith, if the stakeholders do the things that are available to them to do and are being
called on to do, this can be a moment where the multilateral efforts at the diplomatic
table, the negotiations could take hold, and you could really provide the people of Syria
with a transition.
Now, Foreign Minister Lavrov and I have had frequent conversations and face-to-face meetings,
most recently in Moscow in July, here in Geneva two weeks ago, in Hangzhou this past weekend.
And each time, we have worked together to try to build a consensus on the broad steps
and then to develop specific ideas on how those steps could be implemented.
As we have both stated several times, we did not publicly spell out these measures earlier
because the details of how they would be carried out were crucial to be finalized and because
each had an impact on the other.
And we know that, especially in Syria, plans do not implement themselves.
So today, we are announcing an arrangement that we think has the capability of sticking
but is dependent on people’s choices.
And it has the ability to stick providing the regime and the opposition both meet their
obligations, which we – and we expect other supporting countries – will strongly encourage
them to do.
Obviously, the Russians have an ability to be able to encourage Assad, and we have an
ability together with other countries to encourage the opposition.
So what specifically have we agreed to?
First, we agreed on the steps through which the regime will come to a place where it will
not fly combat missions anywhere where the opposition is present in an area that we have
agreed on with very real specificity.
Once this arrangement takes full effect, the regime would no longer be able to do in the
future what it has been able to do so much in the past, which is go after Nusrah allegedly
but hit moderate opposition and mask attacks against the legitimate opposition by claiming
that it’s going after Nusrah.
Now, I want to emphasize: This step is absolutely essential.
It is a bedrock of this agreement.
And by all accounts, the Assad air attacks have been the main driver of civilian casualties
and migration flows and the most frequent violations of the hostilities.
Halting all of the regime’s military air activities in key areas, key areas that are
defined – not all flights, because there are still Nusrah and ISIL, but that will be
managed in a different way also.
And that should put an end to the barrel bombs, an end to the indiscriminate bombing of the
civilian neighborhoods, and it has the potential to change the nature of the conflict.
Whether it does or not depends on compliance.
Second, the United States and Russia have agreed on steps which we will take, providing
there is a sustained period of reduced violence.
And after that sustained period of violence, we have agreed that we will then work together
– providing both access and reduced violence have been provided for the period of time
– we would then work together to develop military strikes against Nusrah.
Now, I want to be clear about one thing particularly on this, because I’ve seen reporting that
somehow suggests otherwise: Going after Nusrah is not a concession to anybody.
It is profoundly in the interests of the United States to target al-Qaida – to target al-Qaida’s
affiliate in Syria, which is Nusrah, an organization that is opposed to a peaceful transition,
an organization that is an enemy of the legitimate opposition, an organization that is currently
plotting attacks beyond Syria’s borders, including against the United States.
So we must go after these terrorists – not indiscriminately, but in a strategic, precise,
and judicious manner, so that they cannot continue to use the regime’s indiscriminate
bombing in order to rally people to their hateful crimes.
It is our belief that, in fact, Nusrah and ISIL have grown stronger because of the bombing.
Now, some might disagree, but that is our belief.
Now, third, in Moscow we also said before we could move forward with the steps that
we have identified, we would need seven days of adherence to the cessation of hostilities
in order to convince the people of Syria and the opposition that the actions of the regime
and its supporters will be consistent with the words that we put on paper.
And I’ve talked to you previously about the words on paper not meaning anything unless
the actions follow them up.
Now, of course, the opposition will also be expected to adhere to the cessation of hostilities,
and that is why today the United States and Russia together are calling on all sides to
recommit to a nationwide cessation of hostilities and to honor its previous terms.
This will be effective at sundown on September 12th.
Now, this – I might add also that is the beginning of the Eid holiday, and we can think
of nothing more appropriate than for all the parties to come together and make Eid more
meaningful to the people of Syria and the region.
Now, this requires halting all attacks, including aerial bombardments and any attempts to gain
additional territory at the expense of the parties to the cessation.
It requires unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to all of the besieged and the hard-to-reach
areas, including Aleppo.
And as we stand here, we know that Aleppo continues to be the besieged and bombarded
city taken on by the regime and its allies.
And if Aleppo is at peace, we believe that the prospects for a diplomatic solution will
brighten; if Aleppo continues to be torn apart, the prospects for Syria and for its people
are grim.
Now, that is why this arrangement also requires forces from both sides to pull back from Castello
Road – and we have agreed on that pullback.
Castello Road is a major artery into Aleppo, and what this pullback will do is create a
demilitarized zone around it, permitting as quickly as possible the resumption of humanitarian
and civilian traffic along that road.
And that will be achieved over a period of time by some monitoring, which is essential
to the compliance.
Meanwhile, in the Ramouseh Gap area in southwest Aleppo, both pro-government and opposition
groups will be required to provide safe, unhindered, and sustainable humanitarian, commercial,
and civilian access to eastern and western Aleppo.
Now, neither the opposition nor the government will be permitted to attack or to take territory
held by the other, or, I might add, to obstruct the delivery of humanitarian goods.
Now, finally, beginning September 12th, we will then commence preparatory work for a
Joint Implementation Center.
And these preparations will include initial discussions and some sharing of information
necessary for the delineation of territories controlled by Nusrah and opposition groups
in the area of active hostilities.
And then the more comprehensive process of delineation will be conducted by experts once
the joint implementation group – the center, or so-called JIC – once the center is established.
Now, once it is established after seven continuous days of adherence to the cessation of hostilities
and increased humanitarian access, then U.S. and Russian experts will work together to
defeat Daesh and Nusrah.
I want to emphasize these measures can only be implemented effectively if all the parties
live up to their obligations.
If groups within the legitimate opposition want to retain their legitimacy, they need
to distance themselves in every way possible from Nusrah and Daesh.
And we expect that Russia will ensure that the Syrian Government will adhere to all of
its requirements about its air activities and about the access for humanitarian deliveries.
No one is building this based on trust.
It is based on a way of providing oversight and compliance through mutual interest and
other things, and we are determined to explore every single avenue possible for progress.
If this arrangement holds, then we will see a significant reduction in violence across
Syria.
We’ll see humanitarian aid deliveries go forward in Aleppo and wherever the need is
the greatest.
And after a period of reduced violence, then we will see the United States and Russia taking
coordinated steps to isolate and defeat the terrorist groups that have added immeasurably
to Syria’s suffering and misery – and we will facilitate a political transition,
which is the only way to bring about a durable end to this war.
In closing, I just want to emphasize that the crisis in Syria, obviously, is enormously
complex and it is still, even as it’s complex, relatively simple at the same time.
It’s complex for reasons that we all understand – the number of stakeholders with different
agendas, the wounds that have been inflicted by years of fighting, the ideological and
sectarian divides, the urban and suburban war zones, the brutality of extremists, and
the unhelpful actions of some outside powers.
But let me be clear: out of all of this complexity there is emerging now a simple choice between
war and peace; between human agony and humanitarian relief; between the continued disintegration
of an ancient society and the re-birth of a united and modern nation.
So I want to thank Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, whom we will hear from a little later,
and the many governments in the Middle East and Europe and elsewhere who have been supportive,
and especially the NGOs, the medical assistance organizations, and the religious and advocacy
groups that have been working for years to aid victims and halt the fighting in Syria.
And today Sergey Lavrov and I, on behalf of our presidents and our countries, call on
every Syrian stakeholder to support the plan that the United States and Russia have reached
– to back its implementation in good faith – and to continue the hard work of bringing
this catastrophic conflict to the quickest possible end through a political process.
Our goal is to find the day when this kind of round-the-clock diplomacy isn’t necessary,
frankly.
And I want to thank Sergey Lavrov.
He has been – he and his team today have been particularly patient as we work through
a very long day to make sure that the Ts were crossed and the Is were dotted and the legal
standards were met.
And I’m grateful to him for the efforts that he has joined me in trying to help provide
this opportunity.
It is an opportunity, and not more than that, until it becomes a reality.
And both of us are going to do everything we can to help it become that reality.
Thank you.