John Kerry to head to Moscow for talks on Syrian peace plan

Kerry is scheduled to Putin and discuss the ongoing efforts to achieve a political transition in Syria

US Secretary of State John Kerry will head to Moscow on Tuesday on a delicate diplomatic mission to try to keep the fragile Syrian peace process on track.

In a sign of the complexity of the US-Russian relationship, the State Department said Kerry would meet President Vladimir Putin but the Kremlin would not confirm this.

"They will discuss ongoing efforts to achieve a political transition in Syria," US spokesman Mark Toner said yesterday on the sidelines of the UN climate summit in Paris.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a decision about whether Putin would meet Kerry could wait until after his talks with Foreign Minster Sergei Lavrov.

"John Kerry is coming here on the invitation of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His partner in the talks will be Russia's foreign minister," Peskov said.

"We do not exclude the possibility of such a meeting when Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Secretary of State Kerry inform President Putin about their talks."

Kerry will also raise the issue of Ukraine, where Moscow stands accused of supporting pro-Russian separatist rebels, Toner said.

Russia will use the opportunity to protest the sanctions imposed on its economy by the US and its allies after it annexed Ukraine's Crimea region.

The Russian foreign ministry said it hoped the visit, Kerry's second this year, would improve what it said were the "complicated" relations between the rival countries.

The talks will also cover differences in the parallel Russian and US approaches to the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.

Washington accuses Moscow of using strikes against IS as cover for a campaign to shore up Bashar al-Assad's regime against legitimate opposition movements.

The Kremlin insists its ally in Damascus has the sole right to authorise foreign military intervention against the jihadists, and that US bombing violates Syrian sovereignty.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said yesterday that there was "still a lot of work to be done" in crafting an exit strategy for a war that has killed more than 250,000 people since March 2011.

"From the very beginning, there has been disparate views about the future of Assad, and that is not resolved today," he said.

Washington and Moscow are the key sponsors of the international bid to mediate an end to the Syrian war through the International Syrian Support Group.

The 17-nation group had been planning to meet in New York under UN auspices on December 18 to push forward plans for a negotiated ceasefire.

But the US and Russia are awaiting the results of a meeting between Syria's splintered opposition before confirming the date.