U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry boards his plane as he departs to Geneva on Thursday. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)Secretary of State John F. Kerry will meet in Geneva on Friday with his Russian counterpart, the State Department said, in a sign that the United States and Russia may be close to an agreement for a renewed cease-fire in Syria. The Obama administration said earlier this week that the meeting would not take place unless they had resolved outstanding issues with a U.S. proposal for an extended truce, to be followed by new coordination in their counterterrorism efforts in Syria. Kerry has had several telephone conversations this week with Lavrov, following their failure to reach an agreement over the weekend during meetings in China, where President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin also met on Syria and other issues on the margins of a G-20 summit. Those meetings followed Kerry-Lavrov talks in Geneva two weeks ago on the U.S. proposal, which Kerry presented to Putin during a July visit to Moscow.

Source: Washington Post September 08, 2016 21:22 UTC