United States, Russia agree to try to revive Syria plan

QuestCinq.com/News/04/23/13

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had agreed to look for ways to revive a Syrian peace plan, but admitted that doing so would be extremely difficult.

Kerry, speaking after talks with Lavrov and NATO colleagues in Brussels, also backed away from earlier comments suggesting he was calling for increased NATO contingency planning on Syria.

Kerry said he and Lavrov had discussed ways to revive a peace plan agreed in Geneva last June that called for a transitional government.

“We are both going to go back, we are going to explore those possibilities, and we are going to talk again about if any of those other avenues could conceivably be pursued,” Kerry said.

He said that while there might be a difference of opinion between Russiaand the United States about when and how Syrian President Bashar al-Assad might leave office, “I don’t think there’s a difference of opinion that his leaving may either be inevitable or necessary to be able to have a solution.”

Source: Reuters