WASHINGTON \u2014 US Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday he was confident Middle East powers would send troops to help defeat the Islamic State group in Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Washington has so far resisted suggestions it put US boots on the ground to add muscle to a year-old coalition air campaign aimed at breaking the jihadists’ grip on a swathe of Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, in an interview with CNN, Kerry said he expected that when the time was right some of Syria’s neighbors would step up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We are talking about very specific ways to do that with other countries in the region,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There will need to be people on the ground. I am convinced there will be at the appropriate moment,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The president has made it very clear that American troops are not part of that equation,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But I do know that there are others who are talking about it. There are people in the region who are capable of that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kerry did not say which countries might be persuaded to take part in a ground operation, but the obvious candidates would be Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shortly after making his comments, Kerry met with his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir, on the eve of a three-day visit to Washington by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Washington is in intense discussions with Saudi Arabia and Russia about ways to restart talks on a Syrian political transition that would see President Bashar al-Assad depart and placate moderate rebels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it remains determined to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the IS group, which has declared a so-called caliphate on its territory and has openly boasted of carrying out atrocities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday he was confident Middle East powers would send troops to help defeat the Islamic State group in Syria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":116138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":44,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[44,8,33,19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2793],"class_list":["post-60071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget","category-congress","category-home","category-pentagon"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"STAHP2UQMFGMBKISQEBGMTPKV4","arc_canonical_url":"\/congress\/budget\/2015\/09\/02\/kerry-confident-regional-powers-will-send-troops-to-syria\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n