Kerry to Meet Lavrov for Syria Talks in Paris
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet his Russian and French counterparts in Paris on Monday ahead of an expected international conference on ending Syria's conflict, officials said.
Kerry and Sergei Lavrov will meet "to continue discussions from their meeting just a few weeks ago in Russia, and provide updates as they plan ahead for the international conference on Syria," a State Department official said in a statement Friday.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius will also take part in what a Western diplomatic source said would be a "working dinner" in a restaurant in the French capital.
Russia said on Friday the Damascus regime had agreed "in principle" to attend an international peace conference on the Syrian conflict that world powers hope will take place in Geneva in June.
Meanwhile, Syria's main opposition group entered a second day of talks aimed at finding an approach to the Russian-U.S. peace push to get all the sides to participate in international talks that have been dubbed "Geneva 2".
Following the Russian announcement, the opposition urged Assad's government to speak out on whether it will take part in the conference.
"This (Monday) meeting will represent another step towards the organisation of the conference, but there will need to be clarifications regarding the Syrian delegations and the mandate that will be given to them," the diplomatic source said.
"Moscow for instance will have to bring clarifications on the 'in principle' agreement given by Damascus."
The first Geneva meeting, last June, ended in a broad agreement aimed at forming a transition government in Syria and introducing a long-lasting truce.
But the deal was never implemented because of disagreements over what role President Bashar Assad might have in the new government and neither side's decision to lay down their arms.
The proposed peace conference, which some media reports say has tentatively been scheduled for June 10, aims to put an end to more than two years of bloodshed that has killed more than 90,000 people.
The conference was jointly proposed by Russia, a key backer of Assad, and the United States, which supports the rebels fighting to overthrow him.
Source: Agence France Presse
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