4 deadly blasts rock Syria as US, Russia talks stall

A string of bombings claimed by the Daesh group killed dozens across Syria on Monday, as Washington and Moscow failed to agree on a deal to stem the country’s violence.

The blasts in mostly government-held territory killed at least 48 people and wounded dozens more, a day after the terror group lost the last stretch of the Syria-Turkey border under its control.
In China, where world powers were gathered for the G20 meeting, US President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin touted “productive” talks and “some alignment” on Syria.
But the two powers failed to produce an expected deal to ease the violence in Syria, where more than 290,000 people have been killed and more than half the population displaced since March 2011.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said he was working with Russia and the US to have northern Syria declared a no-fly zone, a proposal that has failed to get off the ground in the past.
Washington backs the uprising against Assad, but is working with the Syrian leader’s key ally Moscow on a deal to stem the bloodshed.
Despite the failure, Obama said a meeting with Putin on Syria had included “productive conversations about what a real cessation of hostilities would look like.”
Putin meanwhile said he felt there was “some alignment of positions and an understanding of what we could do to de-escalate the situation in Syria.”
He said a deal with Washington could be firmed up in the “coming days” but refused to give concrete details, saying that US and Russian officials are still “working out some of our preliminary agreements.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov are expected to continue the talks in the coming days.

Source: Arab News