HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — The United States and Russia have reached agreement on a cease-fire in southwest Syria, three U.S. officials said Friday as President Donald Trump held his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The deal marks a new level of involvement for the Trump administration in trying to resolve Syria’s civil war. Although details about the agreement and how it will be implemented weren’t immediately available, the cease-fire is set to take effect Sunday at noon Damascus time, said the officials, who weren’t authorized to discuss the cease-fire publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Israel also is part of the agreement, one U.S. official said, who like others wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter ahead of Tillerson’s official announcement and demanded anonymity. Like Jordan, Israel shares a border with the southern part of Syria and has been concerned about a spillover of violence as well as an amassing of Iranian-aligned forces in the south of the country. The new ceasefire announcement is considered separate from the “de-escalation” plans Russia has brokered with Iran and Turkey through peace talks in Kazakhstan, which pointedly excluded the United States. That the deal was announced before all the details were ironed out was a clear indication of how eager the U.S. and Russia were to cast their leaders’ first meeting as a success. The latest round of talks in Kazakhstan this week fell short of producing a final ceasefire plan because a few of the parties actually shooting at each other in Syria seemed willing to sign on. Notably, Tillerson dropped dictator Bashar Assad squarely in Russia’s lap, describing Russia as “guarantor of the Assad regime” and saying it “has a responsibility to ensure that the needs of the Syrian people are met.”

He returned to that point after Trump’s meeting with Putin on Friday, claiming rather optimistically that American and Russia have similar objectives in Syria other than the fate of Assad’s regime. A US-brokered deal could help the Trump administration retain more of a say over who fills the vacuum left behind as Isis is removed from additional territory in Syria.Though US and Russian officials had been discussing a potential deal for some time, it didn't reach fruition until the run-up to Mr Trump's meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the G20 economic summit in Germany, officials said.Before Mr Trump's meeting with Mr Putin — his first with the Russian leader — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signalled that Syria's civil war would be high on the agenda. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who accompanied Trump in his meeting with Putin, said the understanding is designed to reduce violence in an area of Syria near Jordan’s border and which is critical to the U.S. ally’s security.
The United States, Russia and regional countries reach a ceasefire deal in southwestern Syria.