Russia Hopes International Conference on Syria in September

 MOSCOW,(ST)_ Special Representative of the Russian President for the Middle East and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Moscow hopes that the international conference on Syria  will be held in  September.

“It is said that conference will be convened  in September prior to the UN General Assembly  session , stressing readiness of the Russian side to participate in this conference even in the event it will take place tomorrow.” Bogdanov said in a statement yesterday.

Bogdanov expressed regret for not having such willingness of the Syrian opposition.

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. John Kerry agreed  during their meeting in Moscow early last month to hold an international conference on Syria to resolve the crisis on the basis of Geneva statement.

For its part, the EU deems impossible to solve the Syrian conflict by military actions and supports a Russia-US initiative to hold a conference on Syria in Geneva, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy said at a press conference concluding SA-EU summit.

“There is no military solution to the Syrian conflict, only diplomatic one. We support the joint Russia-US call to hold a conference on Syria in Geneva,” he stated.

A joint final communiqué also expresses concern about the ongoing violence, deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria and destabilizing effect of the conflict on neighboring countries.

“We’re concerned that the UN Security Council split [over Syria] paralyzed international community activities and made impossible to put pressure on all the parties of the conflict in order to end the conflict,” a statement says.

“We call on every party to stop violence and give humanitarian organizations free access to provide assistance to all those in need on the Syrian territory,” the statement underlines.

T. Fateh