Kerry on Syria: ‘Putin Now Has Put Himself in the Center of a Problem’

VAN SUSTEREN: “Mr. Secretary, nice to see you, sir.”
KERRY: “Happy to be here. Thank you.”
VAN SUSTEREN: “All right. What are we going to do about Assad?”
KERRY: “Well, we’re going to work with our members of the coalition, the allies who are all combined in order to fight ISIL, and now hopefully be able to get Russia to join in the effort to fight ISIL, but also to be part of a political track, because you have to do both at the same time in order to try to come to a political resolution with respect to the transition to a government of credibility and a government of capacity in Syria. My hope is, judging on the meeting that we had yesterday with President Putin, I believe there is an opportunity to be able to do – to go down that political track because President Putin accepted the idea of a dual-track effort, and he indicated a willingness to try to work through a political transition. Now, what that means for Assad yet is not yet finalized, not determined. That will be part of the work that both leaders assign the Russian foreign minister and me to pursue over the course of the next days.”
VAN SUSTEREN: “Do you have a sense, though, that President Putin wants President Assad to go?”
KERRY: “I think what he wants is a solution to the problem and he understands that Assad is a major blockade to do that. Has he turned around and said, “I’m going to kick him out”? No, he hasn’t said that yet. What he has said is he’s prepared to have a political process, and the end result of that process is really up to the Syrian people. So there may be a way through that threading of a needle to come to an understanding about where we’re headed. If Assad insists on staying there, Syria will be destroyed for the simple reason that the jihadis, the extremists attracted to the fight will come in even greater numbers, and you will never be able to make peace until you resolve the question of what is happening with respect to the political track of Assad.”
VAN SUSTEREN: “But is there any indication that President Assad even wants to leave or is willing to leave because he –“
KERRY: “Oh, I’m sure – there are indications that he has said publicly, “If the Syrian people don’t want me, then I’m prepared to go.” He has also –“
VAN SUSTEREN: “Do you believe that? I mean, there’s been a lot of indications; there’s a civil war there.”
KERRY: “I don’t believe what he says one iota one way or the other, and I don’t wait to hear what he says. What I do care about is what Russia and Iran and other countries are prepared to do in order to try to solve this problem. And Putin now has put himself in the center of a problem. He’s there. He’s on the ground now. He says he’s going to be there to fight ISIL. Well, guess what? If he’s there to fight ISIL and he doesn’t have the support of Sunni, he’s never going to succeed in that fight. So he may wind up in a very serious situation. The only problem is it also means that Syria goes downhill. So we all have a responsibility because the numbers of refugees that are leaving the country, flooding Europe, changing the politics of Europe, an extraordinary process of destruction of historical sites and of people and of the capacity of a country to be whole, that’s what’s happening because of ISIL’s presence and because of Assad. So both problems have to be solved, and it may well be you have to solve them simultaneously.”
VAN SUSTEREN: “What’s in it for President Putin? I mean, he certainly has muscled his way in. He’s now got the security agreement with Iraq, Iran, Syria –“
KERRY: “Well, that’s not –“
VAN SUSTEREN: “-- on intelligence sharing. But I mean, what’s in it for him? What’s his interest in this?”
KERRY: “Let me just point out very quickly that Russia has been coordinating with Iraq and in the region for many years. This is not new. And the intelligence that they will be sharing and getting from the Iraqis we know is nothing that interferes with us or threatens us in any way whatsoever. And if you’re going to coordinate in an effort against ISIL, you’re going to need some kind of coordination with respect to who’s operating where and what they’re going after. So President Obama and President Putin agreed yesterday to immediately engage in military-to-military de-confliction at the most basic level, not yet to cooperate in the missions, but to de-conflict. We will continue our missions exactly as we are doing them today. The French have now joined in the fight with us and are flying missions. Australians are coming. There’s a lot happening. And I am convinced over the course of the next days that there will be additional pressure on ISIL. The problem is and remains, as we keep telling Iran and Russia, if you do not find a way to be inclusive with respect to the Sunnis – 65 million of them from Baghdad all the way up to the Turkish border through Iraq and Syria – if they are not brought into this fight, if they are not brought into the governing, you cannot solve the problem of ISIL and you certainly can’t solve the problem of Assad in Syria.”
VAN SUSTEREN: “Okay. So what’s in this for President Putin? What are his designs? I mean, he seems to be very busy –“
KERRY: “Putin has a very legitimate concern about 2,000 Chechens who are in Syria learning how to fight and be terrorists and very threatened by surrounding countries from which there are even more people who are there to learn to fight. I think he also is fearful that his client, Assad, was losing ground to both ISIL and the opposition and therefore he wanted to shore him up. But I think shore him up with a view to trying to maintain Russia’s influence and presence in country, even as they try to secure a political solution. It’s a complicated – very complicated series of different interests and relationships, all of which have to be managed in a way to try to secure a resolution. And I think we will find out. I have meetings tonight with the French and the Germans and the British and the Saudis and Turks, Emiratis, Jordanians. We will talk through our point of view about how we might be able to turn Russia’s presence into a plus. And then tomorrow I’ll meet with Foreign Minister Lavrov and we’ll go to the next steps. But this is not going to happen in one day or one week. It’ll take a little while to sort through the modalities and put the political track together, and that’s what we’re going to do.”