25.05 Lavrov, Kerry to Meet in Paris on May 27 - Source
MOSCOW, May 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry on May 27, a source in the Russian Interior Ministry told RIA Novosti on Friday.
It will be the sixth meeting between top Russian and US diplomats this year. Lavrov and Kerry last met in mid-May in the northern Swedish city of Kiruna.
The meeting is expected to focus a conference proposed jointly by Moscow and Washington to bring the Syrian government and opposition groups to the negotiating table. Moscow wants to involve all the nations that took part in the Geneva conference on Syria last summer. The conference is expected to be held at the beginning of June.
Preparations for the conference were discussed by Lavrov and Kerry in a phone conversation on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The situation in Syria was discussed, in the context of preparing an international conference for political settlement in this country, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told journalists earlier in the day that all influential sides, including regional powers, should take part in the conference. He said that the Syrian government has already expressed its readiness in principle to take part.
Lukashevich, however, criticized as counter-productive and one-sided the May 15 UN General Assembly resolution condemning President Bashar Assads forces and a similar motion put forward at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The attempts mentioned send a negative signal to opposition forces, de-facto pushing them towards rejecting negotiations, he said.
Updates with Lukashevichs statement in paras 6-8
