BALI, October 7 (RIA Novosti) – Top diplomats of Russia and the United States, who met on Wednesday on the sidelines of an Asian economic forum, said Moscow and Washington hope to organize an international peace conference on Syria in mid-November.
The conference, to be held in Geneva, was announced by the two diplomats in May, but has been repeatedly postponed over many issues, including the participation of Syrian opposition forces.
“We support holding this conference in mid-November,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. “Today we have agreed on measures to ensure that both the [Syrian] government and the opposition attend the conference.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters that the conference might be held on the second week of November.
The Russian foreign minister said after the meeting that Russia was satisfied with how the Damascus government cooperates with international chemical weapons experts who are to dismantle the country’s chemical weapons.
Late on September 27, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) approved the US-Russian-initiated plan to eliminate chemical weapons in Syria, and the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution supporting the plan.
International experts began eliminating the country’s chemical weapons on Sunday.
