UNITED NATIONS -- Secretary of State John Kerry said President Barack Obama's administration is weighing an offer from Russia to have military-to-military talks and meetings on the situation in Syria.
Kerry said Wednesday that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had made the proposal in a phone call Tuesday and that the White House, Pentagon and State Department were all considering it. Kerry suggested that he favored such an idea, noting that the United States wants a clear picture of what Russia's intentions are in Syria after a recent military buildup there.
Kerry said Lavrov had told him that Russia was interested only in fighting the Islamic State group in Syria, but Kerry stressed that it remained unclear if that position would change.
Also Wednesday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said his response to Russia's stepped-up military support for Syria is that "there is no military solution" to the nearly five-year conflict, and more weapons will worsen the violence and misery for millions of people.
The U.N. chief again urged all parties, including the divided U.N. Security Council, to support inclusive negotiations to find a political solution.
Ban said at a news conference Wednesday that he plans to meet with foreign ministers of the five permanent council nations -- the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France -- on the sidelines of the General Assembly's ministerial session later this month to discuss Syria.
Ban urged those five permanent members to show the same solidarity and unity in addressing the Syria crisis as they did in achieving an Iran nuclear deal.
But Syria's U.N. ambassador said Russia should be able to carry out airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria -- the first known comments by a senior Syrian official on that possibility since Russia began making new military moves.
"Why the Americans are fighting ISIS with their fighter jets and the Russians should be forbidden from that?" Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told a small group of reporters, referring to an acronym for the Islamic State. "Does it make sense? It doesn't make sense.
"After all, we are fighting the same enemy."
Russia in recent days has sent about a half-dozen battle tanks and other weaponry to Syria, with the apparent goal of setting up an air base near the coastal town of Latakia.
Last week, Israel said Russian troops were setting up an air base there to deploy airstrikes against Islamic State militants.
Ja'afari dismissed those concerns, calling the recent activity the same kind of military cooperation that Russia and Syria have had for years.
Elsewhere Wednesday, France decided to join the coalition of Western and Middle Eastern countries carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, the country's defense minister said, with the first strikes likely in the next couple of weeks.
The airstrikes would represent a significant departure for France, which has resisted targeting Syria directly for months because of fears that the strikes would help Syrian President Bashar Assad. France also has a history of insisting on U.N. resolutions to authorize the use of force.
In an interview with France Inter radio, the defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said France was gathering intelligence on Islamic State targets in preparation for the airstrikes.
Describing the situation in Syria as "grave," Le Drian said the Islamic State recently had enlarged its territory to the point that it threatened rebel groups near Aleppo, and the major road network that leads to the Syrian capital, Damascus, and Lebanon.
"Daesh is on the offensive in Syria," he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
The Islamic State has control of much of the territory that extends from northern Syria across the Iraqi border to Mosul and south to within about 30 miles of Baghdad.
France has been struggling with a decision over whether to strike Islamic State targets in Syria. The government, led by President Francois Hollande, has been outspoken in its criticism of Assad. But until now, France has refused to do anything that would even indirectly help him, including targeting his enemies.
"Our enemy is Daesh," said Le Drian, underscoring that the French strikes were not intended to help Assad.
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Lee and Cara Anna of The Associated Press; and by Alissa J. Rubin of The New York Times.
A Section on 09/17/2015