Moscow, May 20 (IANS/RIA Novosti) The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that a conference on the Syrian settlement will take place "very soon", possibly at the beginning of June, after consulting UN Security Council permanent members.
"As I have been asked by the parties to convene this conference on the auspices of the United Nations, I'm now actively engaging with all the parties I have spoken to: the US, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, all other key parties," the UN chief said here Sunday.
"We are still trying to look at a window possibility in early June but this is a matter of still further consultations," he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday after a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry that an international conference on Syria at a ministerial-level may be held in Geneva if both sides of the Syrian conflict agreed to participate in the event.
The conference would be a follow-up to last year's international meeting in Geneva that drafted a peace roadmap for Syria.
Syria has been locked in an increasingly bloody civil war since demonstrations broke out against Bashar al- Assad regime in March 2011.
According to UN estimates, at least 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
--IANS/RIA Novosti
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