MOSCOW, May 19 (RIA Novosti) – After consultations with UN Security Council permanent members, a conference on the Syrian settlement will take place “very soon,” possibly, at the beginning of June, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Sunday.
“As I have been asked by the parties to convene this conference on the auspices of the United Nations, I’m now actively engaging with all the parties I have spoken to: the US, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, all other key parties,” Ban Ki-moon said during his visit to the Moscow office of RIA Novosti international news agency.
“We are still trying to look at a window possibility in early June but this is a matter of still further consultations,” he said, adding he was confident the conference would be held soon.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday after a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry that an international conference on Syria at a ministerial level may be held in Geneva if both sides of the Syrian conflict agreed to participate in the event.
“We share the opinion that this conference should be held in Geneva,” Lavrov said.
The conference would be a follow-up to last year’s international meeting in Geneva that drafted a peace roadmap for Syria.
Lavrov reiterated on Wednesday that the conference initiative must be supported both by the Syrian government and the opposition in order for the event to take place.
Opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad have refused to sit down for talks with the regime in the past, saying that Assad’s removal is a non-negotiable issue.
The Russian minister also said that the list of the participants in a new conference should be expanded to include Syria’s neighbors and “key regional players,” such as Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Syria has been locked in an increasingly bloody civil war since demonstrations broke out against Assad regime in March 2011. According to UN estimates, at least 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
