Lavrov, Ban Ki-moon to discuss international conference on Syria prospects

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov may meet with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the end of the week to discuss prospects for convening an international conference on Syria. Informed sources told Itar-Tass that the meeting would take place at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Lavrov and the UN-Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, discussed proposals for the meeting by telephone on Monday. The agreement to hold a peace conference on Syria was reached at a meeting between Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Moscow on May 7. Since then, Geneva has hosted two rounds of preparatory talks in the Russia-UN-U.S. format. However, the parties failed to agree on substantial issues concerning the conference on Syria, dubbed by diplomats as Geneva II. Diplomatic sources said circumstances permitting, the conference would take place no earlier than September.