“All of us are going to try to get President Assad to make the right decision in these next days to engage in a political process that results in a genuine transition and in peace for Syria,” Kerry said during a late night Thursday conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
During their meeting in Moscow, Kerry and Lavrov spoke extensively on areas of agreement between the United States and Russia aimed at achieving a diplomatic solution for the five year-old Syrian civil war.
Kerry also said that the United States and Russia reached an agreement in Moscow that the next Geneva talks will focus on addressing the details of Syria’s political transition, including an August timetable for a draft constitution.
“We agreed that the next steps in the Geneva talks is to immediately take up the details of the political transition [in Syria], the best and perhaps the only way of ending the war,” Kerry said at a late Thursday night press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The two officials also agreed on a target schedule “for establishing a framework for political transition and also a draft constitution” for the war-torn Syrian state, Kerry added.
"We agreed today… to accelerate the effort to try to move the political process forward," Kerry said.