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Middle East and North Africa

Russia hopes conference on Syria be held before the start of next UN Security Council session

“This seems to be the main problem and it is unclear how to solve it in near future,” the Russian ambassador to the UN said

UNITED NATIONS, August 6 (Itar-Tass) - Russia continues to hope that the international conference on Syria (Geneva 2) will be held before the next session of the UN Security Council starts in September, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin pointed out to reporters.

“I believe the efforts must continue. In the early days of August there is still time to hold the meeting before the start of the next session of the General Assembly,” Churkin said. He said there was sense to expect that more than one meeting on Syria would be held during the 68th session of the General Assembly.

At the same time the diplomat noted that the Syrian opposition lacked unity and was unable to “present the platform for the talks”. He regards this as the main obstacle to convening Geneva 2 conference. “This seems to be the main problem and it is unclear how to solve it in near future,” the Russian ambassador to the UN said.

The arrangement to hold the second conference on Syria was reached at the meeting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry in Moscow on May 7. There was so far no certainty that the Syrian opposition would participate in Geneva 2 and this prevented fixing the date of the meeting.

A delegation of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces met with members of the UN Security Council in late July and notified them of the readiness for a peace conference. This, however, did not help progress in the preparation for the meeting.

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