Paul Eaton quoted by Sputnik International on Possible Syrian Peace Talks with Russia

US ‘Better Off’ Negotiating Syrian Peace Talks With Russia: Major General

December 13, 2014 | Sputnik International

“The US administration should use every opportunity to negotiate a Syrian peace deal with Russia, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton has told Sputnik.

‘Any opportunity that you can sit down and talk, and negotiate with your friends or opponents, the better off we are,’ Eaton said Friday when asked whether the Obama administration should take up the recent Russian offer to relaunch talks to settle the conflict in Syria.

‘Any opportunity you can to sit down with Russian negotiators should be taken [because] the outcome can always be a negotiated result,’ Eaton stressed, saying ‘it is better to jaw-jaw, than to war-war’, referring to a quote by former British prime minister Winston Churchill.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said on Wednesday that if Syrian officials wanted to meet in Moscow, he would discuss the issue with the United States.

The US State Department responded on Thursday, saying that Washington was looking for more details from Moscow on the proposed meeting, including what the objective is for the talks.

Earlier in the week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Washington should coordinate the fight against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria through direct contacts with the Bashar Assad government, but Washington “stubbornly insists” that it cannot recognize the legitimacy of the regime.

The last attempt at international peace talks on Syria ended in a failed round of talks in Geneva in early 2014.”

To continue reading, click here