US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has told UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that the fate of Syria and Bashar al-Assad is now in the hands of Russia.

During a private meeting last week at the State Department, Tillerson said the Trump administration’s priority is limited to defeating the Islamic State, according to “three diplomatic sources familiar with the exchange“.

A State Department official would not comment on the discussion but insisted that the U.S. remains “committed to the Geneva process”:

[It is a] credible political process that can resolve the question of Syria’s future. Ultimately, this process, in our view, will lead to a resolution of Assad’s status.

The Syrian people should determine their country’s political future through a political process.

The US, having worked with Russia after the Assad regime’s chemical attacks near Damascus in August 2013, was effectively sidelined by Moscow in summer 2016. The Russians and Iran, the essential backers of the Assad regime, began working with Turkey on political and military arrangements that made no commitment to Assad’s departure and culminated in May in Russia’s declaration of “de-escalation zones”.

“The President asked me to begin a re-engagement process with Russia to see if we can first stabilize that relationship so it does not deteriorate further,” Tillerson said in early June.

Donald Trump is likely to have his first face-to-face encounter with Russian President Vladimir Putin next week, on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany.