John Kerry to attend international meeting on Syria

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State John Kerry will attend the UN-sponsored international meeting on Syria in the Swiss city of Montreux.

"In Montreux, Kerry will participate in the ministerial- level and UN-hosted International Conference on Syria, also known as Geneva II," State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki said yesterday.

Kerry and his counterparts from around the world will launch the Geneva II process, aiming to fully implement the Geneva communique including a negotiated political transition to begin the end of the Syrian civil war, she said. Kerry would then travel to Davos where he will deliver remarks at the annual meeting of World Economic Forum on the US' commitment to and engagement in the Middle East region.

"Our goal is to put in place a process here to fully implement the Geneva I communique. That involves a number of things, including a political transition by mutual consent for a transitional governing body," State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters.

"It also includes other things, important things that I think we focus on less in here but are not any less important, including humanitarian access. So we want to make progress, we want to put a process in place. Obviously, these are very complicated and tough discussions, but we need to do so. It's just too important to go any longer without progress here," she said.

"This is a UN process that's really the two sides, if we can get them all to the table, sitting down and talking to each other directly for the first time since this conflict began, which I think is an important point and we don't focus on enough," Harf said. "Obviously, how we can play a role, how Russia can play a role, how all of us can play a role in helping to move some of these issues forward," she added.