Syria Peace Effort Largely a Failure, U.S. Official Says

By Nicole Gaouette Mar 27, 2014 12:00 AM ET

Attempts to negotiate a diplomatic solution to Syria’s civil war are failing, a U.S. State Department official said, as lawmakers denounced the Obama administration’s response to the country’s turmoil.

“The Geneva II process has faltered,” Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson said yesterday of talks between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and rebels that were organized by Russia and the U.S. “We’ve worked closely with the Russians particularly to try and get them to cooperate with us,” Patterson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “It’s a process that’s largely failed.”

Democratic and Republican lawmakers at the commitee’s hearing, which drew no more than four senators at a time, expressed frustration over the civil war that has killed more than 130,000 people since 2011, according to United Nations estimates. They also accused the President Barack Obama’s administration of failing to do more to support rebel forces or punish Assad’s regime.

Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the committee’s top Republican, derided some of Patterson’s answers as “major misleading baloney” and said the Obama administration had “zero” policy. The panel’s chairman, New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, demanded a classified hearing with “whoever is necessary” to get fuller answers to their questions.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-27/syria-peace-effort-largely-a-failure-u-s-official-says.html