Internationally brokered talks between Syria’s government and opposition groups should start this month as planned, Russia and the US have said, despite no sign of agreement on who should represent the opposition.
Speaking after meeting, US secretary of state John Kerry in Switzerland on Wednesday, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said neither of them had thought about seeking a postponement of the talks, which are scheduled to start in Geneva on 25 January.
“We have no intentions to postpone the talks from January to February. This is both the position of Russia and the US, and we are confident that in the next days, in January, such talks must start,” he said. Lavrov said various dates were being mooted, but the final decision was for the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon on the advice of his special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura.
“We hope the negotiating process will begin this month,” Lavrov said. “I stress that this will be just the start, because of course it will take a lot of time, a whole range of arduous tasks are to be resolved.”
Kerry’s spokesman, John Kirby, said the secretary of state and Lavrov had discussed “the importance of maintaining progress toward a diplomatic solution to the crisis in Syria”.
Kirby said: “There’s been no change in our desire to see this meeting happen on the 25th, and the secretary reiterated that.”
He added Kerry had pressed Russia to use its influence with President Bashar al-Assad to ensure unimpeded humanitarian access to Syrians.
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