After lengthy meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States is not seeking regime change in Syria and that the U.S. and Russia see the conflict "fundamentally very similarly."

"The United States and its partners are not seeking so-called regime change as it is known in Syria," Kerry said in a news conference inside the Kremlin, before immediately adding that Washington continues to believe that Bashar Assad has no possibility of remaining as the country's leader in the future. However, Kerry said the talks didn't focus on "what can or can't be done immediately about Assad" but rather on establishing a political process in which Syrians will be able to choose their own leader.After a three-hour meeting in Moscow between Putin and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the two sides appeared to be a step closer to each other's positions on Syria, though differences remained on the fate of Assad.

In a stark reminder of the urgency of the quest – and even as the U.S. envoy and the Kremlin leader were meeting Tuesday – a monitoring group said suspected Russian air strikes killed 34 Syrian civilians.

"We support the idea of convening in New York another meeting of the International Syria Support Group at the ministerial level this Friday, Dec. 18," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after the talks, which also touched on counterterrorism and Ukraine. He and Kerry said the New York negotiations would lead to a U.N. Security Council resolution to underpin the process aimed at brokering a ceasefire and political talks between Assad's regime and Syria's armed opposition. "We discussed today in great detail the need to accelerate the effort," Washington's top diplomat said.

"You can't defeat DAESH without also de-escalating the fight in Syria," he said. In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby predicted "the same level of activity and energy" at the New York talks as in two previous rounds among the 17 nations involved in Vienna. Kerry and Lavrov admitted differences remained between Washington and Moscow on Assad's fate but stressed they would not let those ruin the political talks.