SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he would be willing to talk with Syrian President Bashar Assad to help broker a political resolution to the country's civil war.
Kerry said in an interview with CBS News that the U.S. is pushing for Assad to seriously discuss a transition strategy to help end Syria's four-year conflict, which has killed more than 220,000 people, given rise to the Islamic State group and destabilized the wider Middle East.
"We have to negotiate in the end," Kerry said. "What we're pushing for is to get him to come and do that, and it may require that there be increased pressure on him of various kinds."
President Barack Obama's administration has long pushed for a political settlement to the Syrian crisis and helped bring the Assad government and the Western-backed opposition to the negotiating table in early 2014.
Those talks collapsed without making any headway, and there has been no serious effort as of yet to revive them.
"We've made it very clear to people that we are looking at increased steps that can help bring about that pressure," Kerry said, without elaborating on what those steps might be.
Syria's state news agency reported Kerry's comments in full. It also said Damascus has called for a political solution before and accused the U.S. of undermining such efforts, militarizing the conflict and supporting terrorists.
The U.S. has provided financial support to the opposition Syrian National Coalition and nonlethal assistance to mainstream armed rebel groups that are opposed to Assad.
Since the beginning of the conflict, the Syrian government repeatedly and publicly agreed to international peace efforts while simultaneously ignoring the commitments it has made under them.
It also has refused to discuss any proposal to usher Assad out of power.
Assad's Western-backed opponents maintain that Assad can have no role in the country's future and that any negotiated settlement must be based on the so-called Geneva road map, which envisions a political transition in Syria toward democracy by the formation of a transitional governing body with full executive powers.
The latest attempt to bring the sides together took place in January in Moscow, but the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition shunned the meeting because it did not aim to create a transitional government and remove Assad.
The U.S. joined talks in Switzerland with Assad's foreign minister and members of the U.S.-backed moderate Syrian opposition a year ago, but those talks also failed when Assad's representatives refused to discuss how to create a transition government.
"Everybody agrees there is no military solution; there's only a political solution," Kerry said. "But to get the Assad regime to negotiate, we're going to have to make it clear to him that there is a determination by everybody to seek that political outcome and change his calculation about negotiating."
Marie Harf, a State Department spokesman, sought to clarify Kerry's message after the interview aired Sunday. "Our policy has not changed -- there is no future for a brutal dictator like Assad in Syria, and we remain committed to pursuing all diplomatic avenues to negotiating a political solution," she said in an email.
"It has never been and would not be Assad who would negotiate -- and the secretary was not saying that," Harf said.
Meanwhile, Syrian government warplanes pounded a suburb of Damascus on Sunday, killing at least 20 people, activists said.
The Local Coordination Committees activist collective and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday's air raids targeted the district of Douma northwest of the capital. Assad's air force bombs Douma and other rebellious neighborhoods and towns around Damascus on a daily basis.
Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said government jets carried out four strikes on Douma on Sunday morning that killed 20 people and wounded more than 100. He warned the death toll could rise because many of the wounded were in critical condition.
The Local Coordination Committees said dozens of people were killed and wounded.
Talks on Iran resume
Also Sunday, Kerry arrived in Lausanne, Switzerland, to resume negotiations with Iran on the country's nuclear program.
"Important gaps" remain going into talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Kerry said Sunday night, adding "it may be that Iran simply can't say yes to the kind of deal that the international community is looking for."
Two weeks out from a deadline for a framework accord, some officials said the size of the diplomatic task meant negotiators would likely settle for an announcement that they've made enough progress to justify further talks.
One diplomat said new differences surfaced only in the last negotiating round of what has been a 15-month process, including an Iranian demand that a nuclear facility buried underground be allowed to keep hundreds of centrifuges that are used for enriching uranium -- material that can be used in a nuclear warhead. Previously, the Iranians had accepted the plant would be transformed into one solely for scientific research, that diplomat, who requested anonymity, and others have said.
The deal that had been taking shape would see Iran freeze its nuclear program for at least a decade, with restrictions then gradually lifted over a period of perhaps the following five years. Washington and other world powers would similarly scale back sanctions that have crippled the Iranian economy in several phases. Iran says it is only interested in peaceful energy generation and medical research, but much of the world has suspected it of maintaining covert nuclear weapons ambitions.
On CBS News, Kerry said most of the differences between Iran and the negotiating group of the U.S., Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia were "political," not technical. Political matters tend to include levels of inspections, Iran's past military work linked to its nuclear program and how quickly to scale back sanctions.
Top diplomats and technical experts from the U.S. and Iran met Sunday. Kerry and Zarif were to hold their first discussion today.
While negotiators are giving themselves until the end of June to work out details, "whatever we have at the end of March has to be very clear" so "we know exactly the direction," Kerry said.
Republicans and some Democrats believe a deal would be insufficient and unenforceable. They've made a series of proposals to undercut or block an agreement.
Letter to Senator
Meanwhile, Obama's administration moved to curb further interference with negotiations to limit Iran's nuclear program, asking a top U.S. senator to keep Congress on the sidelines until a deal is done.
In a letter sent Saturday to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, Obama's chief of staff advised holding off on legislation that would grant lawmakers a more prominent role in the U.S.-Iran deal-making process.
"The legislation would likely have a profoundly negative impact on the ongoing negotiations," White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough wrote.
Last week, 47 of the Senate's 54 Republicans signed an open letter to Iran's leaders warning that any nuclear pact they cut with Obama could expire the day he leaves office. The action prompted criticism from top administration officials, who declared it an unprecedented interference in the president's conduct of U.S. foreign policy.
Kerry called the letter written by freshman Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas "unconstitutional."
Corker, who didn't sign the letter, co-sponsored a proposal to give Congress the final say on any deal.
Obama would veto the bill if it passes, McDonough said.
"The administration's request to the Congress is simple: let us complete the negotiations before the Congress acts on legislation," he wrote.
Corker said Congress should be able to take a vote on the deal before it is finalized.
"On this issue where Congress has played such a vital role, I believe it is very important that Congress appropriately weigh in before any final agreement is implemented," he said in a statement late Saturday responding to McDonough's letter.
Corker, R-Tenn., said he has picked up support from Democrats for his bill and has sought to preserve a veto-proof majority.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, one of the Democratic co-sponsors of the bill, defended it Sunday during an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press.
"All our bill does is sets up the process under which Congress reviews a deal," he said. "This is a very bipartisan and deliberative approach to looking at something that is fundamentally about our nation's security interests, and if they're going to unwind congressional sanctions, Congress is going to be involved."
Democrats supporting the proposal have vowed to wait until after the March 24 deadline for the talks before voting on the proposal. Republicans have tried to advance the bill for a vote before the deadline.
In his letter, McDonough included assurances that Congress will have an opportunity to weigh in on the deal.
"We agree that Congress will have a role to play -- and will have to take a vote -- as part of any comprehensive deal," he wrote.
Information for this article was contributed by Bradley Klapper, Ryan Lucas, George Jahn and staff members of The Associated Press and by Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Toluse Olorunnipa and Clea Benson of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 03/16/2015