Geneva II must convene as soon as possible

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday that “More than 100,000 people have been killed, and millions of people have either been displaced or became refugees in neighbouring countries. We have to bring this to an end." Speaking to the press at UN Headquarters in New York, Secretary-General Ban and United States Secretary of State John Kerry, argued that a political solution is the only way to end the Syrian civil war, stressing that they would step up efforts to facilitate dialogue among all parties. “More than 100,000 people have been killed, and millions of people have either been displaced or became refugees in neighbouring countries. We have to bring this to an end,” UN's Ban told reporters ahead of his meeting with US top diplomat Kerry. UN Secretary-General highlighted that he and Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi would spare no effort to convene the Geneva II Conference on Syria meeting as soon as possible, saying “Military and violent actions must be stopped by all the parties and it is thus imperative to have a peace conference in Geneva as soon as possible, as initiated by Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov.” In May, US Secretary of State Kerry announced, following his talks in the Russian capital Moscow with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, that they would work together to achieve a political solution to the Syria crisis, and agreed to convene an international conference towards achieving this goal. Without any date yet been set for the conference, efforts are continuing to determine the best time for it to be held, who should participate, how it should be structured along with the issues to be discussed. “There is no military solution to Syria, there is only a political solution and that will require leadership to bring people to the negotiating table,” Kerry noted, adding that he and Lavrov remain committed to make the Geneva meeting happen. As for the private meeting of Ban and Kerry, they focused not just on the situation in Syria, but also the situation in the Middle East. UN chief praised Kerry’s mediation and resolutue efforts to revive the peace process for a two-state solution in the Mid East, and called upon the Palestinian and Israeli leaders to “seize this opportunity and respond positively and courageously so that the two-state solution can be realized as soon as possible." Also discussing the Great Lakes issue in Africa and the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ban and Kerry underscored the need to follow the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework, repeating the commitment of their Special Envoys in the region to work together.