MOSCOW, October 26 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s foreign minister and the UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria discussed preparation for the Geneva-2 peace conference on Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
In a phone conversation, Sergei Lavrov and Lakhdar Brahimi agreed to “continue joint efforts” to convene the international conference on Syria and also discussed the November 5 trilateral meeting, in which envoys of the United Nations, Russia and the United States will take part.
Lavrov highlighted the importance of Brahimi’s efforts to form a single representative delegation of the Syrian opposition for talks with the government and to “ensure the participation of the key regional states.”
The international peace conference on Syria backed by Russia and the United States is expected to take place on November 23-24, Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said earlier this month. He said the Geneva-2 conference would proceed despite leading Syrian opposition groups’ continuing reluctance to participate.
The conference is meant to bring the Syrian government and the opposition to the negotiating table in hope of ending the 2 1/2-year-long civil strife in the Middle Eastern country, which has cost at least 100,000 lives to date, according to UN figures.