ZURICH (AP) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister met on Wednesday in hopes of resolving differences over who is eligible to join U.N.-mediated peace talks for Syria due to begin next week.
Kerry later was to travel to the Swiss resort town of Davos for the World Economic Forum and speak with the U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, who plans to convene the Syria talks Monday in Geneva.
Differences over which Syrian opposition groups should be labeled terrorists and barred from the negotiations have threatened to delay the talks, the first step in a proposed 18-month political transition for Syria, mired in civil war.
Lavrov, asked before the meeting if the Syria negotiations would begin as planned, told reporters, “We will see, we will see.”
Referring to the composition of the opposition delegation, he said, “It’s mostly for de Mistura, not for us.”