US seeks to hold Syria talks in New York
US Secretary of State John Kerry says an international meeting on ending the Syrian conflict may be held at the United Nations in New York City next week.
Speaking in Paris on Tuesday alongside UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Kerry admitted that details about who should represent militant groups fighting in Syria are still being ironed out.
"We ... talked about Syria and the need for the UN negotiations to be able to begin, and hopefully for a ceasefire to be able to take effect, when and if we can achieve that," Kerry told reporters on the sidelines of the climate talks in Paris.
"It is our plan to try and attend and have a meeting in New York on December 18", he said.
Earlier, the Russian foreign ministry had said that in the absence of progress on finding militant representatives, it would be "premature" to announce a date for talks.
"Not having a collective understanding of who in Syria is a terrorist and who is an opposition member, it is impossible to hold talks on the internal Syrian political process or on such an important and urgent matter as the ceasefire," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
"We don't need to hold a meeting just for the sake of meeting," it added.
The United States and Russia are the main sponsors of the talks, which aim to mediate a ceasefire between President Bashar al-Assad's government and militants fighting against the government.
A US-led coalition has also been pounding purported Daesh positions inside Syria since last September without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.
The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria, which flared in March 2011, has claimed the lives of more than 250,000 people and left over one million injured, according to the United Nations.
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