US Secretary of State John Kerry says the United States, Russia and Iran have made progress on Syria but the three countries "agreed to disagree" on the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Press TV reported.
Speaking at a news conference after a day of international talks in Vienna, Austria, on Friday, Kerry said that the United States continues to believe that if Assad steps down it will smooth the path to an agreement to end the years-long deadly conflict in Syria, helping the fight to defeat the Daesh (ISIL) group.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif disagreed, Kerry acknowledged, but all three would continue to work together in order to find a political solution to the crisis that has taken tens of thousands of lives.
Kerry and Lavrov both said that they had agreed that Syria must remain a unified state.
The top US diplomat said Syria's state institutions must remain intact, even if he and Lavrov had disagreed over whether or not Assad should go.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The crisis has claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people so far and displaced millions of others.