08-10-2013, 01:43 PM
Can negotiations, with international moderation, lead to compromise? Will it ever take place?
In today's news:
(Reuters) - U.S. and Russian officials agreed on Friday on the need to convene a long-delayed Syrian peace conference in Geneva as soon as possible, but they offered no concrete plan to bring the warring government and rebels to the table.
Asked whether this conference would in fact ever happen, Lavrov said that Russia already had won the agreement of its ally the Syrian government to send a delegation to Geneva without any preconditions.
"John Kerry assured me that the opposition would be persuaded to come to Geneva without any preconditions on the basis of reaching agreement with the government," said Lavrov.
But the date keeps slipping partly because the rebels are split and cannot decide who should represent them. First the talks were bumped to June, then July. Then U.N.-Arab League peace mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who held talks with senior U.S. and Russian officials in Geneva, ruled out a peace conference before August.
Full story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/0...Q520130809
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This will be quite a test for John Kerry in his new role.
In today's news:
(Reuters) - U.S. and Russian officials agreed on Friday on the need to convene a long-delayed Syrian peace conference in Geneva as soon as possible, but they offered no concrete plan to bring the warring government and rebels to the table.
Asked whether this conference would in fact ever happen, Lavrov said that Russia already had won the agreement of its ally the Syrian government to send a delegation to Geneva without any preconditions.
"John Kerry assured me that the opposition would be persuaded to come to Geneva without any preconditions on the basis of reaching agreement with the government," said Lavrov.
But the date keeps slipping partly because the rebels are split and cannot decide who should represent them. First the talks were bumped to June, then July. Then U.N.-Arab League peace mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who held talks with senior U.S. and Russian officials in Geneva, ruled out a peace conference before August.
Full story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/0...Q520130809
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This will be quite a test for John Kerry in his new role.