A Quote by John F. Kerry

The Russians need to understand that you cannot have peace [in Syria] unless you resolve the question of Sunni buy-in.

John F. Kerry

Quote Topics

Buy Cannot Need Peace Question Resolve Russians Sunni Syria Understand Unless

Quote Author

John F. Kerry
American - Politician
Born: December 11, 1943

Sunni are the majority of the [Syria], 60 to 65 percent. They've been ruled by [Bashar] Assad, who represents a minority Alawite element, which is about 12, 13 percent. And because of the choices Assad made, it's very difficult to see how you resolve this without buy-in from the Sunni world.

John F. Kerry

Lebanon cannot resolve a question like Hezbollah which is in Syria, Iraq, everywhere because of Iran. It is a regional political solution that needs to be done.

Saad Hariri

We have a deal. And so there's movement towards a peace agreement, you know, a peace accord, a cease-fire, which is great. That's fabulous. It's unfortunate that we're also bombing Syria together [with Russians], and in my view we need - what we need to do together is create a weapons embargo together and get all the parties with the program here, and also collaborate on a freeze on the bank accounts of those countries that continue to fund terrorist enterprises, the No. 1 source of that being the Saudis.

Jill Stein

People talk about [Bashar] Assad running Syria. He doesn't control his own country. He's down to about 20, 25 percent of the country. What is this fiction that he is somehow the only person who can save Syria? There's - with Assad there, there is no Syria. So that's what the Iranians and the Russians need to really begin to focus in on.

John F. Kerry

We need to be stronger. We need to deter the Russians. We need to show resolve, which is why cooperating with them on the other hand can be more difficult.

Steve Inskeep

The Russians didn't invent partisan divides. The Russians haven't invented racism in the United States. But the Russians understand a lot of those divisions and they understand how to exploit them.

Fiona Hill

The Russians haven't helped us at all in the fight against ISIS. When you total up the numbers of sorties that have been going into Syria, aircraft attacks, if you will, going into Syria, when the Russians said they were going to assist, we got a very small number of Russian sorties.

John R. Allen

I think it was going to be hard to work with Russians on Syria. There is some potential overlap between the U.S. and Russia in that the Russians don't want to see the Syria situation unravel to a point where they have to escalate their own involvement. But at the moment, I don't see the U.S. and Russia on the same page in Syria. Russia seems much more interested in consolidating government control over liberated areas. It seems to me that the U.S. and Russia are proving they can disagree for independent reasons in any number of theaters.

Richard N. Haass

The central problem in Syria is that Sunni Arabs will not be willing partners against the Islamic State unless we commit to protect them and the broader Syrian population against all enemies, not just ISIS.

David Petraeus

In Syria, a no-fly zone targeted at Assad's air force and safe zones for refugees fleeing the fighting would help tamp down the death toll that plays into the hands of ISIS and other Sunni militants who can position themselves as the only groups that are really defending the Sunni population.

Peter Bergen

We are engaging in the diplomatic efforts that are required within Iraq among the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurd, among friends, like Egypt, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but also enemies like Iran and Syria. They have to have buy-in into that process.

Barack Obama

Let me begin by saying that we have to understand who ISIS is. ISIS is a radical Sunni group. They cannot just be defeated through air strikes. Air strikes are a key component of defeating them, but they must be defeated on the ground by a ground force. And that ground force must be primarily made up of Sunni Arabs themselves, Sunni Arabs that reject them ideologically and confront them militarily.

Marco Rubio

The peace we seek in the world is not the flimsy peace which is merely an interlude between wars, but a peace which can endure for generations to come. It is important that we understand both the necessity and the limitations of America's role in maintaining that peace. Unless we in America work to preserve the peace, there will be no peace. Unless we in America work to preserve freedom, there will be no freedom.

Richard M. Nixon

We have always said there are two ways to resolve Syria, and both will end up with the same result: a Syria without Bashar Assad.

Adel al-Jubeir

You can buy a man's time; you can buy his physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of his skilled muscular motions per hour. But you cannot buy enthusiasm... you cannot buy loyalty... you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, mind or souls. You must earn these.