WASHINGTON, Nov 22 (KUNA) -- The United States agrees with Turkey that there needs to be a political transition "away from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as part of the endgame" However, at the moment, the highest U.S. priority in Iraq and Syria is degrading and eventually defeating ISIL, a senior US Administration official said, late on Friday, aboard Air Force Two en route to Istanbul with Vice President Joe Biden.
"Because we are focusing on ISIL first and Iraq first, the campaign plan ... is further ahead in Iraq than it is in Syria, and part of that is that the train-and-equip mission in Syria is going to take awhile to get up to speed," the official said in a background briefing with reporters as Biden headed for talks with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"So that is why we are having conversations with the Turks about what we can do more now while we are ramping up the train-and-equip mission (in Syria)," the official said.
" ... One of the reasons why it would be useful to have more access to Turkish facilities is that it would potentially open up our ability to do more in support of opposition forces who are combating ISIL," the official said.
"You see an example of this in Kobani already where you have a force that is dedicated and committed to fighting ISIL," the official said. "ISIL has poured an enormous amount of resources into that fight, and they are getting hammered in the air from it. So you can imagine a scenario in which you have a more robust opposition on the ground that was more capable of clearing and holding terrain and also provided opportunities for us to do more to assist them." The official said that "everything will be on the table" during the talks in Turkey.
The ISIL is the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant is a militant movement that has recently emerged, seizing large swaths of land in Iraq and neighboring Syria. The ruthless group is said to be an offshoot of Al-Qaeda organization.
There have been a lot of interactions between U.S. and Turkish officials at all different levels, the official said.
"They understand more about what we need," he said. "We understand more about what they need than was true a month ago. And so we will have a more developed conversation at a very high level than last time simply because we are further along in the conversation. But I do not expect that there will be any finality, because the conversation will continue." (end) rm.rk