WASHINGTON (AP) — International efforts to end the fighting in Syria have been dealt a serious blow, with the United States suspending direct contacts with Russia on halting the war, and chilly relations are turning even frostier after Russia put a hold on a plutonium disposal deal with Washington.

The two decisions, announced in their respective capitals just hours apart Monday, were ostensibly unrelated but underscored deep mistrust and rising tensions between the former Cold War foes, who are increasingly at odds on a number of issues, particularly Syria and Ukraine.

The moves further reduce areas of Washington-Moscow cooperation, yet their most immediate impact may be the potential death blow delivered to halting attempts to revive a moribund ceasefire in Syria, get desperately needed humanitarian aid to besieged communities and begin negotiations on political transition that could mean the ouster of President Bashar Assad.

The Obama administration said it decided to cut off discussions on Syria because Russia had not lived up to the terms of last month’s agreement to restore a tattered cease-fire and ensure sustained deliveries of humanitarian aid to besieged cities, such as Aleppo, which has been under bombardment from Russian and Syrian forces.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: “What’s clear is that there is nothing more for the United States and Russia to talk about with regard to trying to reach an agreement that would reduce the violence inside of Syria and that’s tragic.”

“This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments … and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed.”

Kirby’s statement said that Russia and Syria are pursuing military action in violation of the cease-fire agreement, and pointed to their targeting of hospitals as well as the Sept. 19 airstrike on a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy. The U.S. accused Russia of bombing that convoy, a charge both Russia and Syria have denied.

Russia intervened on behalf of its close ally Syria on Sept. 30 last year, joining Assad’s bombardment of both anti-Assad rebel groups and militant groups such as the Islamic State and Fatah al-Sham Front, an al-Qaida spinoff formerly known as the Nusra Front. Russia is interested in propping up Assad in part because Russia’s only naval facility outside the former Soviet Union is on the Syrian coast.

If it had been implemented, the cease-fire deal would have created a joint U.S.-Russian center to coordinate military and intelligence operations. President Barack Obama had overruled Pentagon objections to such cooperation and Secretary of State John Kerry made the offer.

According to a senior U.S. official, the Pentagon has ordered troops who had been deployed to set up the joint implementation center — fewer than 20 — to return to their bases. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, so the person spoke on condition of anonymity.

The suspension will not affect communications between the two countries aimed at keeping their planes from bumping into each other over Syria.

And, U.S. officials said that despite the suspension of talks with Russia, they would continue to work for a truce and aid deliveries to Syria in other gatherings, including the International Syria Support Group, a collection of nations that includes Russia. In Geneva, the U.N. special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said he was disappointed by the suspension of talks but stressed the U.N. would continue to work on both the humanitarian aid and political fronts.

In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement, expressing “deep disappointment” about the U.S. move and blasting Washington for the failure to separate the rebels from al-Qaida’s branch in Syria.

“Washington’s decision reflects the inability of President Barack Obama’s administration to fulfill the key condition for the continuation of our cooperation in overcoming the Syrian crisis,” the statement said. “Or, perhaps, it never had an intention to do so. We are under a growing impression that in its striving for a much-desired change of power in Damascus Washington is ready to ‘make a deal with the Devil’ and forge a union with terrorists who want to turn history backwards and enforce their inhuman norms by force.”

The ministry added that “the stakes are high,” and warned that the “White House will bear the blame if Syria come under new blows by terrorists.”

The U.S. had agreed to separate the rebel groups but noted it was an extremely slow process. The U.S. has relatively few personnel on the ground in Syria and even the moderate rebels have said they are frustrated with the pace of U.S. help.

The suspension in Syria talks was announced just hours after the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had signed a decree halting a joint program with the U.S. on the disposal of weapons grade plutonium.

The decree cited the “emerging threat to strategic stability as a result of U.S. unfriendly actions,” as well as Washington’s failure to meet its end of the cease-fire deal. It said, however, that Russia will keep the weapons-grade plutonium covered under the agreement away from weapons programs.

Under the agreement, which was expanded in 2006 and 2010, Russia and the U.S. each were to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium, enough material for about 17,000 nuclear warheads. When it was signed in 2000, the deal was touted as an example of successful cooperation between Washington and Moscow.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the U.S. has “done all it could to destroy the atmosphere encouraging cooperation.” It cited U.S. sanctions on Moscow over its annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine and NATO’s deployment of forces near Russian borders.

The White House and State Department voiced disappointment with Russia’s decision to opt out of the program.

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.</s>WASHINGTON — The United States on Monday suspended talks with Russia on trying to end the violence in Syria and accused Moscow of not living up to its commitments under a ceasefire agreement.

The announcement came as Syrian government supported by Iranian-backed militias and Russian air power pounded the rebel-held area of Aleppo, bombing one of the city's main hospitals and badly damaging water supplies.

"The United States is suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia that were established to sustain the cessation of hostilities," U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. "This is not a decision that was taken lightly."

The confirmation that the U.S.-Russian talks on Syria have collapsed suggests that there is little hope, if any, of a diplomatic solution to end the 5-1/2-year-old civil war emerging anytime soon.

It could also trigger deeper U.S. consideration of military options such as providing more sophisticated arms, logistical support, and training to Syrian rebel groups that U.S. officials have said were under consideration, either directly or via Gulf Arab states or Turkey.

However, U.S. President Barack Obama has been loath to get the United States more deeply involved in a third war in the Islamic world and U.S. officials have said he is unlikely to do so with less than four months left in office.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry threatened last week to end the talks after a ceasefire he and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, brokered collapsed last month after warplanes believed to belong to Russia bombed a U.N. aid convoy.

In the statement, Kirby said the United States would continue to communicate with Russian military to avoid so-called deconfliction - to avoid accidental military interactions - over Syria.

But he said the United States would withdraw all personnel it had dispatched to prepare for military co-operation with Russia under the latest ceasefire agreement.

"Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments ...and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed," Kirby said.

News of the suspending of the talks came as diplomats said the United Nations Security Council would begin to negotiate on Monday a draft resolution that urges Russia and the United States to ensure an immediate truce in Aleppo.</s>In This April 21, 2014, file photo, provided by the anti-government activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a Syrian man holding a girl as he stands on the rubble of houses that were destroyed by Syrian government forces air strikes in Aleppo, Syria. Nearly 100 children were killed in a single week in Aleppo as Syrian and Russian warplanes sought to bombard into submission the rebel eastern districts of the city that have held out against Syrian government forces for five years.

U.S.-Russia relations fell to a new post-Cold War low Monday as the Obama administration abandoned efforts to cooperate with Russia on ending the Syrian civil war and forming a common front against terrorists there, and Moscow suspended a landmark nuclear agreement.

The latter move, scuttling a deal the two countries signed in 2000 to dispose of their stocks of weapons-grade plutonium, was largely symbolic. But it provided the Kremlin with an opportunity to cite a series of what it called "unfriendly actions" toward Russia - from Ukraine-related and human rights sanctions to the deployment of NATO forces in the Baltics.

The United States, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement, has "done all it could to destroy the atmosphere encouraging cooperation."

Of far more immediate concern, the end of the Syria deal left the administration with no apparent diplomatic options remaining to stop the carnage in Aleppo and beyond after the collapse of a short-lived cease-fire deal negotiated last month.

The State Department announced that it was withdrawing U.S. personnel who have been meeting in Geneva over the past several weeks with Russian counterparts to plan coordinated airstrikes against al-Qaida and Islamic State terrorists in Syria. The coordination was to start as soon as a cease-fire, begun Sept. 12, took hold and humanitarian aid began to flow to besieged communities where civilians have borne the brunt of Russian-backed President Bashar al-Assad's response to a five-year effort to oust him.

The Syria agreement was part of a year-long effort spearheaded by Secretary of State John Kerry to persuade Russia to help bring a negotiated political end to the war. In exchange for using its leverage with Assad to ground his air force and allow aid to flow, the United States said it would work to separate U.S.-backed opposition groups from terrorist forces with which they have become increasingly intertwined.

Instead, after just a few days of a fitful truce, both Syria and Russia stepped up their bombing attacks in Aleppo and elsewhere in the country, including the destruction of an aid convoy. Russia, while denying the convoy attack, has justified its airstrikes by saying that the cease-fire - along with U.S. failure to disengage the opposition from the Front for the Conquest of Syria, the al-Qaida group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra - allowed the terrorists to rearm and expand their territory.

Russia's version of the sequence of events mandated by the deal is "explicitly not true," a senior administration official said. "Separation was not step one," but was supposed to occur after seven days without major violence. The Russians, the official said, have "constantly tried to move the goal posts."

The Damascus government officially declared the truce over on Sept. 19. Since then, Syrian and Russian aircraft have carried out a massive barrage from the air over Aleppo, including what a U.S. intelligence official said were "barrel bombs, thermobaric bombs, incendiary munitions, cluster bombs and bunker busters."

Unrelenting strikes, many of them targeting hospitals and medical facilities, have "killed hundreds of children in a week's time," said the intelligence official, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity under administration-imposed rules to discuss the Syrian conflict.

Kerry said last week that the United States was "on the verge" of suspending the Syria agreement. "The decision today came after a long, deliberate period of trying to give them every benefit of the doubt," the senior administration official said. "But when they're targeting hospitals, and using these kinds of weapons, that's not a misunderstanding."

"It doesn't mean we've shut the door . . . if the Russians are willing to get serious about implementing" the deal, this official said, although there is virtually no optimism that the agreement can be revived.

But in a series of internal meetings over the past week, the administration has found no alternative that has not already been considered, and previously discarded as unworkable or too risky in terms of broadening the Syrian conflict. President Barack Obama is said to be no more willing to involve U.S. forces, air or ground, in the conflict than he was when it began five years ago. The prospect of flooding the opposition with more, and better, arms is still seen as hazardous.

"Anything we do in the near term could lead to additional" expansion of the war, a second senior administration official said. "There are consequences" to a military approach, the official said, and we "want to make sure we are clear-eyed about them."

At the same time, this official said, the United States will continue to protect its interests against terrorist expansion. The official cited a recent U.S. airstrike in Syria's Idlib province - an area of frequent Russian and Syrian strikes that targeted Front leader Ahmed Salama Mabrouk. The Pentagon confirmed the strike but did not confirm the Front's announcement that Mabrouk had been killed.

Officials said they considered Syria and the plutonium suspension distinct issues, although both are "part of a piece of a troubled and difficult relationship," one senior official said.

"It's certainly the worst period between the two countries since the Cold War . . . it's obvious that things have been deteriorating across the board," said Philip Gordon of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs under Obama.

In a decree released by the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would consider a resumption of the nuclear accord only if Washington agreed to several conditions, including canceling all sanctions and compensating Moscow for losses resulting from them.

The plutonium agreement was once hailed as an example of successful U.S.-Russian cooperation. Signed in 2000 and updated in 2010, it required both countries to dispose of 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium, enough to make approximately 17,000 nuclear weapons, according to the State Department.

Russia had soured on the deal over differences with the United States on how to dispose of the plutonium. Moscow said it has opened a plant that converts the weapons-grade material into fuel know as MOX, which can be used in commercial reactors; construction of a similar U.S. plant in South Carolina has been plagued by delays and cost overruns.

The U.S. side has been split between those who want to build a plant as a way to encourage the Russians, and those who think it safer and cheaper to dilute the plutonium into less harmful material and dispose of it, said George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Putin's move, Perkovich said, "is not a shock," and reflects more of an opportunity for Moscow "to register political dissatisfaction" than a serious threat to nuclear nonproliferation. Worries about the security of Russia's nuclear materials, which approached crisis proportions in the years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, have abated, Perkovich said.

In his decree, Putin said that none of the plutonium was being "used for the purpose of making nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, for any research, development, design or testing related to such devices, or for any other military purposes."</s>This drastic move comes after weeks of growing frustration in Washington. "Everybody's patience with Russia has run out," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday night. He added that Russia had made a "series of commitments without any indication they were committed to following them."

This frustration is easy to understand. The US placed a lot of faith in Russia, and Secretary John Kerry had invested a huge amount time and energy working with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, on the assumption that both he and the Kremlin were seeking an end to the fighting.

Though it may still be true that Russia would like to see an end to the conflict, what that outcome looks like and how it might be achieved is as open to question as ever. For some time, the US believed the Russians were open to a political solution in Syria for the simple reason that they were not obviously pursuing a military solution. It's now clear this was little more than wishful thinking.

Russia has time after time failed to restrain Bashar al-Assad. It is either unable to hold the Syrian leader to commitments he previously agreed to, or doesn't want to. -- designed to stop fighting for long enough so that moderate Syrian rebels could disassociate themselves from terrorist groups, therefore allowing the Syrian government to focus on this enemy and creating the conditions for a political solution to ending the crisis -- was declared "at risk" by Russia after US airstrikes killed Syrian soldiers. Russia said the bombing was "frankly suspicious"; the US said it was accidental. -- designed to stop fighting for long enough so that moderate Syrian rebels could disassociate themselves from terrorist groups, therefore allowing the Syrian government to focus on this enemy and creating the conditions for a political solution to ending the crisis -- was declared "at risk" by Russia after US airstrikes killed Syrian soldiers. Russia said the bombing was "frankly suspicious"; the US said it was accidental. The ceasefire agreed last month -- designed to stop fighting for long enough so that moderate Syrian rebels could disassociate themselves from terrorist groups, therefore allowing the Syrian government to focus on this enemy and creating the conditions for a political solution to ending the crisis -- was declared "at risk" by Russia after US airstrikes killed Syrian soldiers. Russia said the bombing was "frankly suspicious"; the US said it was accidental. Former Russian FM: Moscow not interested in Syria talks Former Russian FM: Moscow not interested in Syria talks It fell then beyond rescue after a humanitarian aid convoy was bombed trying to enter Aleppo. The US said at the time that it held "the Russian government responsible for airstrikes in this airspace given their commitment under the cessation of hostilities was to ground air operations where humanitarian assistance was flowing." The US now believes that Russia was actively assisting its Syrian partners in targeting civilian areas and civilian infrastructure. It's clear that Russia has no intention of using its influence with Assad. So what can the US do, other than put down its cards and walk away from the table, leaving Russia and Syria to find a solution on their own? The conflict will now have to play out and reach a point where countries like the US are once more inclined to start talking again. Russia will no longer face the same level of international scrutiny; there is a reluctant acknowledgment that no one can influence its actions. Russia, it seems, is using the Syria conflict to throw its weight around and let the US know that it has a major rival on the global stage. What incentive does the Kremlin actually have to give up this trump card and bow to the White House? But this doesn't mean that the war is about to accelerate to its conclusion. Four months from now, it is entirely possible that Assad will have bolstered his position on the ground. To reclaim rebel-held areas, he will need to rely heavily on Shia militias from Iran and Iraq . It may be that with an increased Shia presence in the country he is able to secure cities like Aleppo. But that won't be straightforward. In absence of a proper peace deal, it's likely that the Saudis and other Gulf states will continue to fund rebel groups. The Saudis would ideally like Sunni boots on the ground, but will settle for backing Sunni rebels if the result is giving Assad a bloody nose. In other words, the conflict may have lost a major player, but any peaceful end for Syria feels as far away as ever.</s>U.S. accuses Kremlin of carrying out a brutal bombing campaign in Aleppo

The U.S. on Monday suspended talks with Russia over the protracted conflict in Syria, accusing the Kremlin of joining with the Syrian air force in carrying out a brutal bombing campaign against the besieged city of Aleppo.

Anticipating the end of the talks after repeated warnings from U.S. officials, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia responded by withdrawing from a landmark arms control agreement that calls for each side to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium, a material used in nuclear weapons.

The developments signalled the further deterioration of relations between the U.S. and Russia.

Last shot 

 

 “Cooperation over Syria was the Obama administration’s last and best shot for arresting the downward spiral in the bilateral relationship with Russia,” said Andrew S. Weiss, a former White House expert on Russia who is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Just a month ago, it had appeared that Secretary of State John Kerry was on the verge of securing the long-sought cooperation of Russia on Syria through an agreement with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, that called for a reduction of violence, access to humanitarian aid and the joint targeting of jihadi groups.

But no sooner was the agreement announced than it began to fray — first because of the accidental bombing of Syrian troops by the U.S. and then because of what the U.S. claimed was a deliberate bombing by Russian aircraft and Syrian helicopters of a humanitarian convoy headed to Aleppo.

“This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” John Kirby, the State Department spokesman, said in a statement issued Monday. “The U.S. spared no effort in negotiating and attempting to implement an arrangement with Russia aimed at reducing violence, providing unhindered humanitarian access, and degrading terrorist organizations operating in Syria,” including fighters of the Islamic State and the Levant Conquest Front, an affiliate of al-Qaida formerly known as the Nusra Front.— New York Times News Service</s>BRUSSELS (AP) — The United States won’t abandon its pursuit of peace in Syria after suspending direct U.S.-Russian talks on a cease-fire, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday, even as he announced no new strategy to replace diplomatic efforts with Russia.

Washington and Moscow will still discuss Syria as part of larger multilateral negotiations, Kerry said, and they’ll make sure their warplanes conducting bombing missions in the Arab country don’t cross paths. Explaining Monday’s announcement to halt bilateral contacts over Syria, he said Russia has rejected diplomacy and chosen instead to help Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government achieve a military victory over rebel groups.

“We acknowledge in sorrow and, I have to tell you, a great sense of outrage that Russia has turned a blind eye to Assad’s deplorable use of these weapons of war, chlorine gas and barrel bombs, against his people,” Kerry said in a speech focused on trans-Atlantic ties at an event hosted by the German Marshall Fund in Brussels.

“Together, the Syrian regime and Russia seemed to have rejected diplomacy,” he said, opting for a victory at the expense of “the broken bodies, bombed-out hospitals and traumatized children of a long-suffering land.”

Monday’s announcement dealt peace efforts a serious blow. Coupled with a Russian announcement to put on hold a plutonium disposal deal with the U.S., it showed chilly relations between the former Cold War foes turning even frostier.

Kerry said the decision wasn’t taken lightly.

“We are not giving up on the Syrian people. We are not abandoning the pursuit of peace,” the secretary of state said, with Washington maintaining its pursuit of a truce that grounds Russian and Syrian planes and allows aid to reach besieged, rebel-held areas of northern Syria.

The U.S. also will press on with military efforts against the Islamic State group, he said, and finding a durable political solution that allows Syrians to return home and alleviates Europe’s refugee crisis.

But of Russia and Syria’s airstrikes on the city of Aleppo, he said, “People who are serious about making peace behave differently.”

The 5½-year war has killed as many as 500,000 people, chased millions of Syrians from their homes and allowed IS to carve out territory for itself and emerge as a global terror threat.

The Obama administration had been working with Russia for months to forge a cease-fire that ended Assad’s attacks on rebel and civilian areas and separated U.S.-supported, “moderate” groups from fighters linked to al-Qaida. Neither side proved able to fulfill its side of the bargain. But Washington has few other options, given President Barack Obama’s opposition to using military force against Assad’s military.

The White House and State Department said Monday there was no point to the bilateral discussions any longer because Russia hasn’t lived up to a Sept. 9 agreement that included a demand for unfettered humanitarian aid to places like Aleppo, which has been under Russian and Syrian bombardment. They pointed to Russian attacks on hospitals and on an aid convoy last month; Russia and Syria deny they were responsible for the deadly Sept. 19 strike on the convoy.

“Of course I hope that there is not going to be a new Cold War,” Vitaly Churkin, Moscow’s U.N. ambassador, said late Monday. He said U.S.-Russian differences have been “overdramatized” and voiced hope that cooperation on Syria could be resumed.

The U.S. hasn’t ruled out restating talks with Russia, if it takes significant action to halt the bloodshed in Syria.

“Russia knows exactly what it needs to do,” Kerry said in his speech.

Russia intervened on behalf of its close ally Syria a year ago, joining Assad’s bombardment of both anti-Assad rebel groups and militant groups such as the Islamic State and Fatah al-Sham Front, an al-Qaida spinoff formerly known as the Nusra Front. Russia is interested in propping up Assad in part because Russia’s only naval facility outside the former Soviet Union is on the Syrian coast.

If it had been implemented, the cease-fire deal would have created a joint U.S.-Russian center to coordinate military and intelligence operations. President Barack Obama had overruled Pentagon objections to such cooperation and Kerry made the offer.

In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed “deep disappointment” about the U.S. move and blamed the diplomatic impasse on Washington’s failure to separate rebels from terrorist groups.

“We are under a growing impression that in its striving for a much-desired change of power in Damascus, Washington is ready to ‘make a deal with the devil’ and forge a union with terrorists who want to turn history backwards and enforce their inhuman norms by force,” it said in a statement.</s>The United States on Monday suspended talks with Russia on implementing a ceasefire deal in Syria, accusing Moscow of not living up to its commitments to halt fighting and ensure aid reached besieged communities.

"We are not giving up on the Syrian people and we are not abandoning the pursuit of peace," Kerry said in a speech in Brussels.

"We will continue to pursue a meaningful, sustainable, enforceable cessation of hostilities throughout the country – and that includes the grounding of Syrian and Russian combat aircraft in designated areas."

Kerry accused Russia of turning a blind eye to Assad's use of chlorine gas and barrel bombs and suggested it was pursuing a scorched earth policy in place of diplomacy.

"As we know, this tragic war has been made worse by the utter depravity of the regime, that doesn't hesitate to still use gas, chlorine, mixed with other ingredients to kill its citizens, that drops barrel bombs on hospitals and children and women," he said.

"You also have the irresponsible and profoundly ill-advised decision by Russia to associate its interests and reputation with that of Assad, a man who has been responsible for torturing more than ten thousand people."

He said that if Russia was serious about peace, it would have to behave differently than it was now in Syria. "Russia knows exactly what it needs to do in order to get that cessation implemented and in a fair and reasonable way," he said.

Kerry said all parties had a duty to enable delivery of humanitarian assistance.

European foreign ministers will meet on Oct. 17 to discuss what they can do to help bring peace, after the European Union proposed a new humanitarian plan at the weekend in coordination with the United Nations for the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo.

But a senior European diplomat said there was little chance that Russia would change strategy, asserting that Moscow was resorting to the same tactics it used on the Chechen capital Grozny, which was devastated in 1994-96 and 1999-2000 wars by Russian forces intent on keeping Chechnya in Russia.

"Their objective is the total destruction of the opposition. They have a Chechen vision of the conflict. Their method is submission by force," the senior diplomat said.

Russian news agencies, citing Kerry's Syria interlocutor, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, said Moscow would continue to make efforts to resolve the Syria crisis despite the U.S. suspension of the talks.

A spokeswoman for U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said he was in "intensive consultations" on the way forward.

The end of the talks could trigger deeper U.S. consideration of military options such as providing more sophisticated arms, logistical support, and training to rebel groups.

But the speed with which the ceasefire collapsed - after a U.N. aid convoy was bombed in Syria - appeared to surprise some U.S. officials, leaving them without a clear plan on the immediate way forward.

U.S. President Barack Obama has been loath to get more deeply involved and U.S. officials have said he is unlikely to do so with less than four months left in office.

Russia said on Tuesday it had deployed an S-300 missile system to its Tartus naval base in Syria.

"The missile battery is intended to ensure the safety of the

naval base...It is unclear why the deployment of the S-300

caused such alarm among our Western partners," the Defence Ministry said.</s>WASHINGTON—International efforts to end the fighting in Syria have been dealt a serious blow, with the United States suspending direct contacts with Russia on halting the war, and chilly relations are turning even frostier after Russia put a hold on a plutonium disposal deal with Washington.

The two decisions, announced in their respective capitals just hours apart on Monday, were ostensibly unrelated but underscored deep mistrust and rising tensions between the former Cold War foes, who are increasingly at odds on a number of issues, particularly Syria and Ukraine.

The moves further reduce areas of Washington-Moscow cooperation, yet their most immediate impact may be the potential death blow delivered to halting attempts to revive a moribund cease-fire in Syria, get desperately needed humanitarian aid to besieged communities and begin negotiations on political transition that could mean the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.

The Obama administration said it decided to cut off discussions on Syria because Russia had not lived up to the terms of last month’s agreement to restore a tattered cease-fire and ensure sustained deliveries of humanitarian aid to besieged cities, such as Aleppo, which has been under bombardment from Russian and Syrian forces. White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said: “What’s clear is that there is nothing more for the United States and Russia to talk about with regard to trying to reach an agreement that would reduce the violence inside of Syria and that’s tragic.”

“This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” State Department Spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed.”

Kirby’s statement said that Russia and Syria are pursuing military action in violation of the cease-fire agreement, and pointed to their targeting of hospitals, as well as the September 19 air strike on a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy. The US accused Russia of bombing that convoy, a charge both Russia and Syria have denied.

Russia intervened on behalf of its close ally Syria on September 30 last year, joining Assad’s bombardment of both anti-Assad rebel groups and militant groups, such as the Islamic State and Fatah al-Sham Front, an al-Qaeda spinoff formerly known as the Nusra Front. Russia is interested in propping up Assad in part because Russia’s only naval facility outside the former Soviet Union is on the Syrian coast.

If it had been implemented, the cease-fire deal would have created a joint US-Russian center to coordinate military and intelligence operations. President Barack Obama had overruled Pentagon objections to such cooperation and Secretary of State John Kerry made the offer.

According to a senior US official, the Pentagon has ordered troops who had been deployed to set up the joint implementation center—fewer than 20—to return to their bases. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, so the person spoke on condition of anonymity.

The suspension will not affect communications between the two countries aimed at keeping their planes from bumping into each other over Syria.

And, US officials said that, despite the suspension of talks with Russia, they would continue to work for a truce and aid deliveries to Syria in other gatherings, including the International Syria Support Group, a collection of nations that includes Russia. In Geneva the UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said he was disappointed by the suspension of talks but stressed the UN would continue to work on both the humanitarian aid and political fronts. In Moscow the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement, expressing “deep disappointment” about the US move and blasting Washington for the failure to separate the rebels from al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.

“Washington’s decision reflects the inability of President Barack Obama’s administration to fulfill the key condition for the continuation of our cooperation in overcoming the Syrian crisis,” the statement said. “Or, perhaps, it never had an intention to do so. We are under a growing impression that in its striving for a much-desired change of power in Damascus Washington is ready to ‘make a deal with the Devil’ and forge a union with terrorists, who want to turn history backwards and enforce their inhuman norms by force.”

The ministry added that “the stakes are high,” and warned that the “White House will bear the blame if Syria come under new blows by terrorists.”

The US had agreed to separate the rebel groups but noted it was an extremely slow process. The US has relatively few personnel on the ground in Syria and even the moderate rebels have said they are frustrated with the pace of US help.

The suspension in Syria talks was announced just hours after the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had signed a decree halting a joint program with the US on the disposal of weapons grade plutonium.

The decree cited the “emerging threat to strategic stability as a result of US unfriendly actions,” as well as Washington’s failure to meet its end of the cease-fire deal. It said, however, that Russia will keep the weapons-grade plutonium covered under the agreement away from weapons programs.

Under the agreement, which was expanded in 2006 and 2010, Russia and the US each were to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium, enough material for about 17,000 nuclear warheads. When it was signed in 2000, the deal was touted as an example of successful cooperation between Washington and Moscow.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the US has “done all it could to destroy the atmosphere encouraging cooperation.” It cited US sanctions on Moscow over its annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine and North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s deployment of forces near Russian borders. The White House and State Department voiced disappointment with Russia’s decision to opt out of the program.</s>The announcement came as Syrian government supported by Iranian-backed militias and Russian air power pounded the rebel-held area of Aleppo, bombing one of the city's main hospitals and badly damaging water supplies.

"The United States is suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia that were established to sustain the cessation of hostilities," U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. "This is not a decision that was taken lightly."

The confirmation that the U.S.-Russian talks on Syria have collapsed suggests that there is little hope, if any, of a diplomatic solution to end the 5-1/2-year-old civil war emerging anytime soon.

It could also trigger deeper U.S. consideration of military options such as providing more sophisticated arms, logistical support, and training to Syrian rebel groups that U.S. officials have said were under consideration, either directly or via Gulf Arab states or Turkey.

However, U.S. President Barack Obama has been loath to get the United States more deeply involved in a third war in the Islamic world and U.S. officials have said he is unlikely to do so with less than four months left in office.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry threatened last week to end the talks after a ceasefire he and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, brokered collapsed last month after warplanes believed to belong to Russia bombed a U.N. aid convoy.

In the statement, Kirby said the United States would continue to communicate with Russian military to avoid so-called deconfliction - to avoid accidental military interactions - over Syria.

But he said the United States would withdraw all personnel it had dispatched to prepare for military co-operation with Russia under the latest ceasefire agreement.

"Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments ...and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed," Kirby said.

News of the suspending of the talks came as diplomats said the United Nations Security Council would begin to negotiate on Monday a draft resolution that urges Russia and the United States to ensure an immediate truce in Aleppo.</s>WASHINGTON | Already testy, relations between the United States and Russia plummeted Monday as Washington suspended diplomatic contacts with Moscow over failed efforts to end the war in Syria and President Vladimir Putin put on hold a deal with the U.S. on disposing weapons-grade plutonium.

On the surface, the suspensions were unrelated. But both underscored deep mistrust and rising tensions between the former Cold War foes, who are increasingly at odds on a number of issues, particularly Syria and Ukraine. In the short term, the end of discussions on Syria deals a potential death blow to efforts to slow the civil war and begin negotiations on possible elections in the country that could mean the ouster of President Bashar Assad.

Underscoring the deterioration between the U.S. and Russia, Putin suspended a deal on plutonium disposal hours before the U.S. announcement. The two powers will still continue discussions on the Iran nuclear deal, Ukraine and other non-Syria issues.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said the U.S. has “done all it could to destroy the atmosphere encouraging cooperation.” It cited U.S. sanctions on Moscow over its annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine and NATO’s deployment of forces near Russian borders.

U.S. officials said that despite the suspension of talks with Russia, they would continue to work for a truce and aid deliveries to Syria in other gatherings, including the International Syria Support Group, a collection of nations, including Russia.

The Obama administration said it decided to cut off discussions on Syria because Russia had not lived up to the terms of last month’s agreement to restore a tattered cease-fire and ensure sustained deliveries of humanitarian aid to besieged cities, such as Aleppo, which has been under bombardment from Russian and Syrian forces.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, “What’s clear is that there is nothing more for the United States and Russia to talk about with regard to trying to reach an agreement that would reduce the violence inside of Syria and that’s tragic.”

“This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments … and was also either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed.”

Kirby’s statement said that Russia and Syria are pursuing military action in violation of the cease-fire agreement, and pointed to their targeting of hospitals as well as the Sept. 19 airstrike on a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy. The U.S. accused Russia of bombing that convoy, a charge both Russia and Syria have denied.

Russia intervened on behalf of its close ally Syria on Sept. 30 last year, joining Assad’s bombardment of both anti-Assad rebel groups and militant groups such as the Islamic State and Fatah al-Sham Front, an al-Qaida spinoff formerly known as the Nusra Front. Russia is interested in propping up Assad in part because Russia’s only naval facility outside the former Soviet Union is on the Syrian coast.

If it had been implemented, the cease-fire deal would have created a joint U.S.-Russian center to coordinate military and intelligence operations. President Barack Obama had overruled Pentagon objections to such cooperation and Secretary of State John Kerry made the offer.

According to a senior U.S. official, the Pentagon has ordered troops who had been deployed to set up the joint implementation center — fewer than 20 — to return to their bases. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The suspension will not affect communications between the two countries aimed at keeping their planes from bumping into each other over Syria.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova voiced regret about the U.S. move and blamed Washington for the failure to persuade the moderate Syrian rebels it backs to cut ties with extremist groups.

“And now, after failing to fulfill the agreements they worked out themselves, they are trying to shift the blame,” she said.

The U.S. had agreed to separate the rebel groups but noted it was an extremely slow process. The U.S. has relatively few personnel on the ground in Syria and even the moderate rebels have said they are frustrated with the pace of U.S. help.

Putin’s decree on plutonium cited the “emerging threat to strategic stability as a result of U.S. unfriendly actions,” as well as Washington’s failure to meet its end of the cease-fire deal. It said, however, that Russia will keep the weapons-grade plutonium covered under the agreement away from weapons programs.

Under the agreement, which was expanded in 2006 and 2010, Russia and the U.S. each were to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium, enough material for about 17,000 nuclear warheads. When it was signed in 2000, the deal was touted as an example of successful cooperation between Washington and Moscow.

Associated Press Writer Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.
The Obama administration through the U.S. State Department announces the suspension of bilateral talks with Russia about the cessation of hostilities in Syria, as Russia and the Syrian government continue to pursue a military course despite the ceasefire accord.