New US Syria envoy to begin diplomatic tour for peace push

WASHINGTON - The newly appointed US special envoy for Syria will travel to Geneva, Moscow and Riyadh this week as American efforts to find a political solution to the Syrian conflict intensify, the State Department said Wednesday.

Michael Ratney will meet with Russian, Saudi and UN officials "to try to come up with options for some sort of political process, a political process that we know is going to have to include opposition groups and try to work through what that means and what that's going to look like," State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

"I'm not going to speak for the Russians, but I'll state it again as clearly as I can: There's not going to be a military solution to this. That is the United States government's position. That is Secretary [of State John} Kerry's position."

In Geneva, Ratney will meet with the Staffan de Mistura, the UN's special envoy for Syria. Ratney's diplomatic tour will last from 28 August until 2 September.

Syria's civil war has shown no signs of slowing, with the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights saying on Tuesday that government airstrikes east of Damascus had killed some 247 people over the past 10 days.

Fifty children were among the dead, and over 1,000 people were wounded in the strikes, the Observatory said.

The United States has stepped up efforts in recent weeks to find an end to the four-year Syrian crisis, including at a 3 August meeting in Doha between Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.

That was followed by another meeting between Kerry and Lavrov on 5 August in Kuala Lumpur and one Monday in Massachusetts between the top US diplomat and Jubeir - all focused on the Syrian conflict.

"The secretary wants to continue to explore options with the Russians and with Saudi Arabia on what those political options might look like," Kirby said.

Russia, along with Iran, has supported Damascus, while the US and Saudi Arabia have supported moderate portions of the Syrian opposition.

On 17 August, for the first time in two years, the UN Security Council, including Russia, agreed to a statement in favour of a push for a political solution.

Ratney, was appointed to his current post on 27 July. He is an Arabic speaker who served as US consul general in Jerusalem, and as a diplomat in Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco and Qatar.