< Secretary Of State John Kerry On Syria Cease-Fire: 'What's The Alternative?'

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Secretary of State John Kerry has returned home with an agreement for Syria. Now he wants a reluctant U.S. military to go along with the deal that Kerry calls a last chance. The secretary concluded a deal with Russia's foreign minister. Russia, you'll recall, is a leading sponsor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. sponsors some opposition groups in Syria's civil war, yet they say they share an interest in crushing ISIS. So under this deal, if Russia stops bombing U.S.-backed opposition groups, the U.S. will share targeting information about terror groups with Russia. The U.S. military is leery of trying to work both with and against Russia, but in our conversation at the State Department, John Kerry said it's essential.

Why is this a last chance for peace in Syria?

SEC OF STATE JOHN KERRY: It's not a last chance for peace. It's a last chance we think to be able to hold Syria together because if you fail to get a cessation in place now and we cannot get to the table, then the fighting is going to increase significantly. It will ratchet up without any belief in the possibility of a cessation. And therefore, the 450,000 people who've already been killed will mount rapidly to God knows what number. There will be more refugees, more displaced, more migrants heading to Europe. You'll have the potential increased sectarian conflict - Sunni-Shia, Iran. I mean, there are all kinds of forces that could suddenly become unleashed as a result of the failure...

INSKEEP: And the country falls apart - the country falls apart. Is that what - where you're going with this?

KERRY: No, the point that I'm making is that you would have an inability to be able to try to hold it together. You could wind up with enclaves conceivably, Kurd area Sunni and maybe even Sunni extremist area. But you will have continued war.

INSKEEP: Is it also a last chance because the so-called moderate opposition groups that the United States has supported from time to time are almost out of time? They're - they've been losing ground.

KERRY: Well, the moderates have been losing ground. You're absolutely accurate. And I can't tell you whether it's to the point of being out of time, but what I can tell you is that the dynamic of Assad hammering them and Russia hammering them is going to drive them into the hands of Nusra and ISIL. And you will have a greater degree of radicalization and increased intensity, and that becomes more complicated because their proxies are Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And they will pour weapons in, and even people, and so the conflagration just continues.

INSKEEP: This agreement makes a demand of the so-called moderate rebels, which we should explain. You've told them you have to throw off your allies, in some ways your strongest allies, the so-called Nusra Front.

KERRY: No, we're not going to - we're not going to support - we don't support people who are fighting alongside al-Qaida. We know that Nusra, al-Qaida, is plotting against the United States right now. So yes, we absolutely tell people they have to disassociate themselves, sure.

INSKEEP: How can they do that given the way they've fought closely on the ground together?

KERRY: Well, they made a bad choice, and they have to do it by doing it because we are not going to support people who are fighting alongside al-Qaida.

INSKEEP: Meaning you'll let them lose if they don't do this...

KERRY: No, I don't...

INSKEEP: ...If they don't separate from Nusra.

KERRY: I think they will make common-sense decisions and their sponsors will encourage them to make common-sense decisions because their sponsors have joined in condemning al-Qaida and condemning Nusra as al-Qaida.

INSKEEP: I want people to understand that if you get through a period of reduced violence, you intend for the United States and Russia to coordinate their military activities in Syria.

KERRY: No - to coordinate our activities against ISIL and Nusra.

INSKEEP: In other words, you may continue on opposite sides elsewhere in the conflict...

KERRY: We are on opposite sides with respect to Assad himself, and we will continue to support the moderate legitimate opposition and particularly if they are upholding the cessation of hostilities. So that part of the conflict doesn't get resolved on the battlefield. It hopefully transitions to Geneva into a legitimate negotiation.

INSKEEP: It's not clear to us the U.S. military is ready to do what that agreement calls for. Just before we spoke...

KERRY: Well, the president of the United States is ready, and I think the military therefore will be ready.

INSKEEP: Lieutenant General Jeffrey Harrigian gave a briefing at the Pentagon just before we spoke, and he was asked, are you ready to implement the plan on day eight after seven days of reduced violence? And he said, that's going to depend on what the plan ends up being.

KERRY: Well, I met with the president of the United States today, and it's very clear to me that the president is intent on upholding our part of the bargain, which is that if they are going to see to it that Assad's air force is not flying anywhere our opposition is, we have to help in the fight against terrorism.

INSKEEP: What made you conclude that the Russians can be dealt with?

KERRY: I don't know for sure yet. We're testing this every day. That's why we have seven days of required reduction of violence in order to build confidence that they are in fact serious. But what's the alternative? The alternative is to allow us to go from 450,000 people who've been slaughtered to how many thousands more, that Aleppo gets completely overrun, that the Russians and Assad simply bomb indiscriminately for days to come and we sit there and do nothing. That's the alternative to trying to get this done. If America is not going to go in with their troops, and America's made the decision, we're not going in with our troops, and the president's made that decision. So therefore we have to use the tools we have.

INSKEEP: How, if at all, has it affected your long-running efforts, or the atmosphere around these efforts, that even as you're trying to work with Russia, the U.S. government has accused Russia or suspected Russia of being involved in hacking the Democratic Party headquarters, in trying to in (ph) fear in some way in these elections?

KERRY: Well, there's a lot of chafe (ph) - there's a lot of chafe (ph) around obviously. It's, you know, this - it's disruptive, but people are being accurate in laying out what we know and what the - I mean, look, there are - these are complicated set of circumstances and there are things that we obviously deeply disagree with with respect to Russia's choices, ranging from, you know, Ukraine to the methodology of bombing and other things. But we're trying to find a way forward. That's the job of diplomacy.

INSKEEP: There's been so much discussion of Russia in the presidential campaign. I'd like you to help us understand how you view Russia. What are a few words that define what they are to the United States? Are they a rival, a partner, an enemy, an ally? What do you see them as?

KERRY: Complicated. Russia helped us to get the chemical weapons out of Syria. Russia helped us get an agreement with Iran on its nuclear program. On the other hand, Russia has been extremely provocative and even challenging to international law with respect to its activities in Ukraine. And there are other places where our relationship has tensions, friction, even frayed in some ways, and we've got to try to find a path where we are not in perpetual conflict.

INSKEEP: Your predecessor, Secretary Clinton, attempted a reset with Russian relations under President Obama's direction. Did it work?

KERRY: For a while, yes, but then other things happened. And I think there were perceptions Russia had about our activities that bothered Russia, and there were perceptions we had about their activities that bothered us. And they didn't get resolved one way or the other in time to be able to prevent greater friction. But it's better to be coming back to the table to try to work through those differences than it is just to escalate a set of tit-for-tat moves that could ultimately lead to a mistake or to a confrontation that somebody regrets.

INSKEEP: Secretary Kerry, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it.

KERRY: Appreciate it, thanks.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.