Leonid Bershidsky: U.S.-Russian Syria deal lacks a key element
US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) speaks with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as they meet on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) annual ministerial meeting in Vientiane on July 26, 2016. (AFP)
This time is different, or so U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would have us believe. A new Russian-U.S. agreement to ensure a cessation of hostilities in Syria, indeed, goes further than previous efforts, but the lack of mutual trust between the negotiators has the potential to turn the deal into a clone of the less-than-successful Minsk cease-fire agreements for Ukraine.
