Washington — US Secretary of State John Kerry returned Oct. 25 from a five-day trip to Europe and the Middle East focused on advancing a diplomatic process for Syria that is seen as an increasingly urgent priority for some of the United States' closest allies in Europe and the region. While Kerry also met with Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders on the trip and proposed measures to try to restore calm, diplomats and current and former officials saw little chance of the United States embarking on a new Israel-Palestine peace push because chances for progress are seen to be so limited and because the urgency of ending the 4½-year-old Syrian war, countering the threat posed by the Islamic State and stemming the Syrian refugee influx have become top national security priorities, especially for Europe.
“Syria, for the US, for Europe … is the next priority,” Ghaith al-Omari, an expert on Palestinian issues at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Al-Monitor Oct. 26. “Syria has become such a central point [especially] for the Europeans, I don’t see any oxygen for dealing with anything else.”
