MOSCOW, November 19 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that he would soon meet with his US counterpart, John Kerry, amid intensifying international negotiations over a Syrian peace conference.
“I spoke with US Secretary of State John Kerry by telephone. We agreed to meet in the coming days,” Lavrov told reporters on the sidelines of talks in Moscow between a Syrian government delegation and Russian diplomats.
There have been repeated delays over the start of a peace conference in Geneva to seek an end to Syria’s bloody civil war. Participants, including Syria’s ruling regime, Syrian opposition forces, and regional and global powers, have been unable to agree on the preconditions for any negotiations to take place.
Lavrov said Russian President Vladimir Putin had been in touch with the leaders of Middle Eastern countries in recent days over the issue.
More than 100,000 people are believed to have been killed since fighting broke out between the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and armed rebel groups in March 2011, the United Nations has said.
