U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Tuesday in Brussels with his counterparts from Turkey, Italy, and Canada for talks on countering the ISIS militant group and other issues, including the Syrian civil war, the Libya peace process, the conflict in Ukraine, climate-change initiatives, and the Iran nuclear agreement, the State Department said. Kerry met separately with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni, and Canadian Foreign Minister Stephane Dion. At all three meetings, the top U.S. diplomat discussed shared efforts to increase contributions to the coalition against the ISIS extremists and the next steps in the Vienna political process for ending the Syrian civil war. Kerry's meeting with Cavusoglu was "to continue the discussion President [Barack] Obama had this morning in Paris with Turkish President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan," the department said in a statement. "Minister Cavusoglu briefed the secretary on Turkish outreach to Russia, which the secretary encouraged." Kerry and the Italian foreign minister focused on "supporting and accelerating the U.N.-led political process in Libya, and the secretary thanked Italy for its leadership in this process," the department said in a second statement. Gentiloni and Kerry also "agreed the Minsk Agreement on Ukraine must be fully implemented and that international sanctions against Russia are tied to that," the department wrote. Kerry and Dion also discussed "the importance of full implementation of the Minsk Agreement," and the U.S. and Canadian ministers "agreed to intensify cooperation on climate-change initiatives" and discussed the implementation process of the international agreement on Iran's nuclear program, the department said.
